Shards of Abyss
by Shadow000
Summary: Manticore never intended to create wizards. Brilliant geneticists have yet to find an adequate explanation for magic. And Ginny Weasley, a product of their creation, a transgenic and '09er, struggles with it too. Harry Potter crossover.
1. Prologue

_**Title:** Shards of Abyss_

_**Previous Title:** Beneath the Surface_

_**Word Count:** 90,000_

_**Rating:** T _

_**Genre:** Action/Adventure and drama_

_**Summary:** Manticore never intended to create wizards; brilliant geneticists have yet to find an adequate explanation for magic. And Ginny Weasley, a product of their creation, a transgenic and '09er, struggles with it too. Harry Potter crossover. _

_**Disclaimer:** Don't own any of this. Dark Angel belongs to Cameron and Harry Potter to Rowling. Just messing around with their concepts…._

_**Author's Note:** This is the last time. Seriously. I just wanted to spruce this up before showing off the sequel. The story is changed, drastically in some ways and not so much in others. A quick reread would probably help, and for anyone who's never read this before welcome, hope you'll enjoy the ride._

_

* * *

__Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -  
I took the one less travelled by,  
And that has made all the difference.  
__Robert Frost - The Road Not Taken_**_Prologue_**

Egypt wasn't exactly like Ginny remembered. The heat drew the air out of her lungs and suffocated her. The air was heavy and thick with humidity. Once, all that was a comforting familiarity, unnoticable even, but that was around the time when England was a foreign chilly island, full of nasal strangers. Home switched to a different country, and Ginny felt as much as stranger here as Ron must.

It must be true what they said. Never go back home; everything diminishes and tarnishes. Ginny couldn't bear it if the grandness of pyramids was only a trick of her mind, she didn't want to believe that her memory had glorified them. It hadn't glorified Bill, and Ginny nourished that hope. At least she could rely on her memory for a truthful portrayal despite everything wrong with it.

Bill slouched against a counter, chatting away to a brunette receptionist, his confident ease a stark contrast to her flushed cheeks and stiff posture. Ginny rolled her eyes, certain that it was Bill's charm rather than the heat to blame for that, and she interrupted them with a cheerful alacrity.

Bill was unperturbed by her interruption; he just grinned and pushed off the counter to give Ginny a hug. He loomed over her, at least a foot and a half taller, and she had to settle for hugging just over his waist. His soothing presence washed away any lingering fear that Tom Riddle imprinted in her mind. This was safety.

Bill pulled back, and regarded Ginny evenly, trying to find some sign that she was scarred for life like the news suggested, but Ginny just shot him a bright smile, and eyed him back. He hardly changed one bit. His skin was a light brown, evidence of the glaring sun he worked outside in. Bill was her eternal hope that she might achieve a tan someday. Usually he burned and paled, but long years and a blistering sun did its job, and bought out a tan on his skin. Contrary to Mum's wishes, his hair grew even longer, and was now tied back carelessly into a ponytail. No substantial differences. Maybe the pyramids were the same.

Bill's gaze lingered for several moments. Ginny didn't know what he saw. She didn't look much different at all, and careful examination in front of a mirror reassured her of the fraudulence in Tom Riddle's claim. She didn't see anything of him left over. Just Ginny. Same murky brown eyes and untamable mane of red hair, that already felt sweaty at the nape of her neck. Barely an inch taller, and Ginny still endured George's shrimp jokes, and haughtily corrected him with the word petite. Nothing to gawk at.

"Welcome back," said Bill, a wry little grin on his lips. He extended his arms in a generous flourish encasing Egypt.

"Here?" said Ginny and looked around the foyer pointedly. She hadn't exited or entered through the Floo route before. The bland reception centre held no familiarity for her, no nostalgic memories, or paranoia.

Bill shrugged in his unflappable way, sarcastic glint encased in his eyes. "Not as such, no, but I'm sure we could find one or two familiar places."

"I think I wanna be a tourist this time around, buy tacky souvenirs and check out the attractions," returned Ginny jokingly, easily entering the spirit of banter.

Bill poked her in the side. "They wouldn't let a trouble-maker like you anywhere near ancient important…stuff." He made a face, unhappy that he couldn't find an alternative to the word stuff.

"It could have happened to _anyone_," said Ginny, only a touch defensive, but the reaction was still there despite Bill's care not to broach the topic in an accusing manner. If it wasn't a sore spot for Ginny before, it now was considering with the diary last year. Magical objects had a grudge against her. And well, didn't bad things come in threes?

"No, just you, Gin, only _ever _you," said Bill. He shook his head, amusement dotting his freckles. His lips quirked up into an unintentional smile. Despite everything, or maybe because of everything, they always got along brilliantly.

Ginny put on a pout and nudged Bill in the shin. "You should encourage me to be unique unlike Gred and Forge over there. _You're_ supposed to be the good example."

"No matter how hard you try to will always be 'unique'," Bill promised.

"That sounds like an insult," said Ginny. She narrowed her eyes at him. The evil stare wasn't entirely effective because she had to crane her neck. Lost its impact.

"Quite possibly," Bill agreed. He put a hand on Ginny's shoulder and steered her away from the receptionist over to the herd of awkwardly shifting red heads. Mum swept distractedly at the sand, idly bewildered about how it crawled onto her, but gave up when she noticed Bill and Ginny. Her eyes lit up upon seeing her eldest son and she grabbed him into a hug.

Several minutes later, the large chattering group strolled outside under the virtually cloudless vibrant blue sky. Ginny squinted up at it, and the brightness hurt her eyes. Yeah, she was definitely back in Egypt again.

"If you look to your left, you will see a camel," said Bill, settling into his role as tour guide. He made an expansive gesture at the disgruntled camel, and winked at Ginny.

Ginny rolled her eyes and lingered back as the others converged on the camel. She definitely wasn't getting any closer to the smelly beast. She didn't want to be _that_ much of a tourist.

"How does it feel to be back?" Bill wondered. He shoved his hands into his pockets and watched with quiet amusement as his brothers examined the camel. He barely even noticed them anymore, just as Ginny felt about rain in England. Took it for granted, just a part of daily life, and Bill watched people see it through fresh eyes. She didn't know how he felt about it.

Or about her reaction, her indifferent interest in it all. She didn't remember much about her time in Egypt, that was a by product of Smith's carelessness, and to be expected, but she was well acquainted with camels.

"I'm not sure yet," Ginny admitted.

"Well, you might want to start making up your mind, because the next part of this tour involves exploring tombs. PTSD?" Bill shifted his weight unevenly making the sand to trickle under his shoes. He unleashed a deep breath, and waited for her reaction to the words he couldn't bring himself to say.

Ginny's stomach twisted. Her eyes snapped up to meet Bill's, her own wide with disbelief. Her mouth tried to form a question. Why would she have a problem with tombs? She had an active interest in them, no reason for concern, unless….and Bill nodded confirming her thoughts.

"You're going _there_?" Ginny demanded. Her eyes flashed, anger flaring up, and she put her hands up on hips. The foot and a half dissolved into inches as Bill cringed back from her stare. She couldn't argue with Bill poking around in those types of places, it was his job, but she couldn't give her blessing for their family to ignorantly wander in. It wasn't safe. They both knew well what happened to Ginny.

"This is the only time you lot will ever be here, and I don't want to hide a major part of my life," said Bill slowly. His face was angled to the ground, aware of his selfishness, and Ginny tried to find her own.

She didn't speak for a long moment, working her way through her thoughts. The tomb was safe. Dozens of experts investigated it for years, and nothing ever happened. She just didn't want them in there, because then she'd have to accept that she didn't want to be there despite the constant longing. Ginny was scared…and she really didn't want to admit it. What kind of Gryffindor was she?

"I'll be there the whole time," said Bill.

If he had been anyone else, Ginny might have lashed out with words designed to hurt and belittle. Accuse him of wanting a gold star from Mummy, needing someone to be proud of his efforts. Maybe it was true, but Ginny wasn't going to be the one to say it.

She closed her eyes briefly, the sun a warm orange glow on her eyelids. "I can't be there."

"I don't want you there."

Ginny was the only person to activate the tomb in centuries. It was literally dead except for her presence, her accident. Smith would jump at the chance for her to re-enter and investigate, but he was fired long ago for recklessness. Ginny didn't know what she did, and hundreds of scenarios and permutations were performed without success. No one knew, and out of caution wanted her anywhere near it.

Ginny wrapped her arms around herself. A shiver ran down her spine.

"I won't stay away forever."

Someday. When the finely honed instincts of danger muted, and didn't flare up like phantom pain from an old burn warning her not to touch the fire again, against repeating the foolishness of her action, she'd be back.

"I know."

"But I will today. Go. It doesn't matter." Ginny struggled with a bright brittle smile that Bill saw through without a second glance. He wrapped an arm around Ginny.

"Thank you," he said softly, but his face didn't loose that pinched expression.

"Any updates?" Ginny asked. She should have changed the topic, but she was never satisfied with the meagre information she knew about it. Ginny even suspected that those in charge would prefer she knew nothing at all, but Bill told her the stories as she tried to reconstruct a past that was robbed from her. She always needed to know more, to understand what happened to her, despite having long since come to peace with it.

"Not really, no. No one has discovered anymore on what happened to you. Unique isn't a strong enough word for it. Anomaly, maybe?"

Ginny stiffened. She hated that word. Anomaly. It sounded so pretty and soft the way it rolled off the tongue, but it was a harsh bleak word. Goose pimples rose on her arms. Anomaly? It summed her up pretty well, didn't it? It explained the reason for the barcode stamped on the back of her neck; the string of numbers that made little sense, and that Ginny stopped trying to rationalise them sometime before Hogwarts.

33241007486. There might be a significant meaning hidden under layers of code. It was useless to interpret it, she didn't even have a clear understanding of what exactly a barcode was, just that it was some sort of Muggle invention. She hid the black and white lines under her hair. People asked annoying questions, easier just to hide the cause of the questions. She didn't know anymore than anyone about it.

Her life was a jigsaw without a picture on the box's lid and with vital pieces hidden under a rug somewhere. The pieces weren't even shaped typically, all random and bizarre, and it was Smith's fault. The Healers tried to call it amnesia, but they were just sugarcoating the truth. Her memory was wiped, plain and simple, and she only had a slim chance of recovering it.

"I take it that the Nile is on the agenda somewhere?" Ginny asked, dismissing her thoughts before Bill noticed her mind drifting to places best unvisited. He wouldn't want to know that she was obsessing. He didn't know there was a hidden meaning behind the question. Ginny wanted to remember something. _Anything._ She had seen the Nile before. It was hard to miss, and maybe, retracing old footsteps might remind her of some details.

"Today, if those dunderheads stop trying to rape the camel," said Bill, raising his voice so said dunderheads heard the insult.

Percy flushed a dark red, and quickly stepped back from the camel. He was the kindest to it, or perhaps the most fearful, kept his distance, content only to eye it with curiosity.

Ron made a face and mouthed the word 'dunderhead' to himself, before casting a surreptitious glance at his parents. He grinned at the censorship, well aware that Bill had several other words on the tip of his tongue.

"It's not rape – the camel is totally asking for it," Fred yelled back.

George nodded along. "Yeah, it's wearing provocative clothing, and leading us on. Complete slut."

"I suppose the camel tried to hitch a ride too," said Bill scathingly.

A pained expression flickered across Mum's face, but she didn't say a world. This was a holiday, her time off, and they were on Bill's turf. His responsibility. Mum didn't even know the entire story about what happened. It was a secret, relatively few people knew, and Mum wasn't one of them.

Ginny studied her parents for a moment. She would never tell them. And what could she even say? Ginny pushed those thoughts away, and tried to enter the joyous atmosphere, but her eyes were darkened with those undertones, unable to ignore it all.

She drifted away from the others, somehow managing to slip off unnoticed, and she wandered down the length of the Nile. Her dull eyes watched the tourist packed boats wander by, and examined the wares in stalls. Ginny trudged, the incredible heat bored down her back, and she couldn't work up the energy to walk. Her thoughts were vague and fuzzy, intentionally so, it wasn't the heat. Ginny allowed her mind drift, hoping that it would help her regain memories, knowing that it was useless to force it.

It must have worked, because she still saw the Nile, only it had a slightly different shape, as though someone changed the coastline. It was the awkward time between night and day when moths fluttered irritatingly nearby and merchants trooped home to the wafting smell of dinner. There was the slight weight and warmth of a hand on her shoulder while a voice trickled by her ears without her ever hearing the words.

And then there wasn't. Mid-afternoon resumed, and that brief moment was about as tangible as a dream. Bill's hand rested on Ginny's shoulder, his eyes stared at her face.

"Up to more trouble?" Although his tone was teasing it belied his heavy stare.

"Just…thinking," Ginny replied, and shook her head. She forced a smirk onto her lips. "About trouble of course."

"Of course."

Maybe she imagined it, the heat actually got to her head, and she wished so badly that her mind invented it. But maybe it was real. It didn't clarify or add to anything. It hardly mattered. Ginny didn't mention it to Bill and nothing remotely strange happened until the second last day of the holiday.

Everyone was inside the tomb. Ginny found a nice spot of sand and flopped down on it, making herself comfortable. She heard Ron wonder why she wasn't going inside and managed to bite her tongue at the cover story. Too young. Ginny just waved sarcastically and rested her head on her arms, dark sunglasses protecting her eyes. Surprisingly Mum didn't insist on waiting outside with her and Bill trusted that she wouldn't go in after them or wander off. Ginny didn't know where that trust came from but she wasn't going to argue against it.

She lay a hundred feet away from the tomb. She didn't have to wait so far away, but it was for her own comfort. She wasn't going any closer, but that didn't stop Ginny glancing around curiously, committing the scenery to memory for a second time. It was so innocent and unassuming, hard to believe the sinister implications that lurked inside. The yellow sand and blue sky gave none of that way. Ginny groped around for a vague memory of the place. Bill told her before that it was hidden by a magical force field, and first time around, she wouldn't have seen the tomb, accepted the illusion of sand stretching endlessly into the distance.

Ginny sat up, supporting herself on her hands, barely wincing now at the burning sand. The heat wasn't so tedious, although her skin was tinged pink by the sun. The colour would fade back to white. She could almost pretend that she never left, that she never arrived at the tomb, but was just wandering by.

_The sand stirred under her feet, trying to make her slide, but her footfalls were confidant. Slow however, sticking to her companion's pace; a tall man, all limbs, and impossibly ancient. His cane sank into the sand, his pace sluggish, like he had all the time in the world. _

"_Who **are** you?"_

"_No one important."_

_An odd expression flickered across his weathered face. He murmured something, and in the immense silence his words were clear. Unfamiliar._

_She repeated them. Her tongue mangled the words, producing them with different emphasis, too clumsy to produce the sound. She didn't try again, but asked, "What does it mean?"_

_Innocent curiousity. She liked words._

_An odd glint appeared in his watery eyes, and a soft smile formed on his lips, his eyes drifted half shut. Peaceful, and if he weren't moving, she might have suspected his demise._

_A chuckled escaped him, and it was harsh. He shook his head and refused to explain it, or his reaction. "I couldn't mistake your as the other, 486."_

_She shivered, but covered it up with sarcasm. "Good for you. Senility obviously isn't an issue then." There was an undertone of doubt in her voice. _

_She shifted away from the old man, and that moment became aware of an invisible force pressed on her skin, like pressure after descending deep under the sea. She wasn't sure what it was, there was nothing now but endless desert and the cloudless sky. They were far from the Nile, and heading further into the desert. People and society faded away, no more loud bustling crowds, only an eerie quietness. _

"_Good, because I know what's in store for you," he whispered, the powerful words crackled in their quietness._

"_You're a fortune teller now, as well as a Doctor?"_

"_You don't believe?"_

"_No. It's a scam. The crystal ball is a dead give away."_

_His quiet confidence tried to make her doubt her words, pressure her into thinking that she was foolish for not believing but she was too rigid in her thoughts and selective view of the world for that to be successful. She didn't like second thoughts._

"_Do you know what magic is?"_

"_It is the suppose art of invoking supernatural powers to influence; mysterious quality or power," she recited._

"_Stick around Egypt for awhile, and you might see a few peculiar things that fall under the meaning of magic."_

_She was never one to back down from a challenge._

Ginny shook her head, her limbs quivered from the intensity of the vision. It came as a shock that she was sprawled on the ground and not walking along. Ginny's arms trembled under her weight, and she lay down again, vision playing in front of her eyelids. _That_ wasn't wishful thinking. Real. A memory, and she couldn't deny it.

Ginny didn't know how much time passed, but everyone trickled out of the tomb. It was a though one second they weren't there, and then they were. No minutes in between, nothing but the memory. Ginny savoured it as though it was a gorgeous cake. It lingered on her tongue, enthralling her taste buds, and she chewed slowly, trying to get more enjoyment out of it than possible. And with great reluctance she swallowed the metaphorical bite of cake.

She would have her cake and eat it. Revisit years of memories, and eventually understand it all. Couldn't get where she was going unless she knew where she came from. Only maybe she could and it was an entirely different destination. Ginny didn't want that route. The future was spread out in front of her, so many paths that a crystal ball was useless, and it told the wrong story.

In her personal story she had to be the hero, because otherwise there was no story at all. Her role as a sidekick or love interest, or as anything but the hero, belonged to someone else's story.

Stories mingle together and deviate. They share similar events and feelings. Someone told Ginny that there were only several plots recycled time and time again, but this was her story.

It began with wanting more cake.


	2. Memory

_**Author's Note: **Thanks for reviewing, everyone! Here is Chapter One as promised. _

_And I'm not asking for value nor the pain but I am asking  
For a way out of this lie  
Because I can't wait for you to catch up with me  
And I can't live in the past and drown myself in memories  
__Shinedown - In Memory_

* * *

_**Chapter One: Memory**_

Ginny fidgeted with a quill, lacing it through her fingers, and stared at the unfinished letter in front of her. Her mouth moved silently, reading the words she wrote; they felt so inadequate and rang falsely. She should just tear it up and start again.

She groaned and rested her head in her hands. Her eyes flickered shut. Ginny rubbed her temples and regarded the letter again. She should have followed Jake's example and disappeared off the face of earth, unwilling to maintain the effort of contact. She wouldn't have to stress over syntax, tone, and word choice. Ginny _hated_ writing letters, but she couldn't bring herself to ignore the weekly torture. She owed Colin that much, after what she did last year, but that's what made this so hard. She couldn't think of the boy without a twinge of guilt and fear.

Colin should hate her, resent her, feel something that wasn't amiable friendliness. It made her feel like she was deceiving him, like he didn't understand what exactly she did, how much it cost him, and that she was a terrible friend. It was a vicious circle of loathing and doubt, that Ginny knew better than to get trapped in, but it happened anyway.

She should have known better than to write in the diary. Ginny should have known a lot of things. Colin too, but in the end, they were just two kids adrift in first year, who screwed up. Now, on the brink of second year, Ginny vowed to do it better this time. She hoped that it wasn't too late, that public opinion wouldn't have change and her year group now despised her, or that she'd be too far behind to catch up.

Ginny's stomach writhed. She wasn't overly concerned with _those_ superficial worries, they were, at most, a meagre attempt not to look beyond her nose and consider lingering nightmares and unseen scars, because then she'd realise that it wasn't safe. Any of it. And that she was _scared_. Ginny sighed, a bitter smile twisted her lips. It was such long time ago since she was fearless. In some twisted way, it seemed more detached than that random memory.

Ginny's thoughts drifted back to it. Her fidgeting ceased, and in the unbearable stillness, she started to doodle on a loose scrap of parchment. The design was finished before she sorted out her jumble of thoughts. The black lines were completely straight and ineffably perfect. Four-eight-six. The barcode.

For the first time, it had a meaning. It wasn't just like a random freckle or smudge of dirt. Ron thought the barcode was once, and tried to scrub it off, removing the supposed evidence of an afternoon's crime. He didn't succeed. The lines didn't even fade. Since then, Ginny was self-conscious about the barcode.

It never bothered her before; there was a comforting sort of familiarity about it. Although a stranger's face peered back at her from the mirror, that mark on her neck was always hers, a fundamental part of her identity and distinguishable, like she was real before with an actual life before waking up in a hospital. A cold comfort. It morphed into a burden the day Ron tried to remove it, a treasured dark secret that she clung to, despite resenting its shadowy existence.

Ginny let out a long sigh hiss through her teeth and leant her forehead against the window's blissfully cool glass. It had not been this hot a few minutes ago. The peeling sunburn, from Egypt, itched, and Ginny rubbed at it absently, rough fingernails clawing raw skin. The sunburn glowed, as if the burning sun scorched down on it. The stuffy air in Egypt invaded the room, stifling and ancient, and an old nightmare resurfaced and clutched Ginny in its grasp despite her fully conscious state.

She couldn't breathe. It hurt. Her lungs expanded and contracted, fire passing through them, burning and scorching. Eternal pain, and when it lessened it her lungs, it sizzled over her entire body. Shuddered breaths rattled against her rib cage. She tried to make them slow and shallow in an attempt to avoid those daggers stabbing into her dusty lungs.

Usually Ginny woke up in suffocating darkness, gasping for breath with the crippling fear that she was trapped and couldn't move. It was a late August evening, and though gentle, the sun was bright, darkness far away. A fit of body-wracking coughs immobilised Ginny. Her eyes teared up, and she struggled to breathe, fight against the impulse of shallow breaths and inhale the oxygen she desperately needed.

The fit subsided.

But Ginny wasn't okay. One of the things that terrified her the most about the Chamber of Secrets was the enclosed space. Ginny didn't know if her claustrophobia came from her previous life, but she suspected that it was mostly down to what happened in the tomb. Even in the spacious room in _The Leaky Cauldron, _it overwhelmed her. She made the right decision in staying far away from the tomb. She wouldn't have been able to breathe at all.

Ginny opened the window a few inches and huddled close to the not-quite-fresh but chilly London air. It penetrated her lungs, and slowly the fear slunk away. The breeze played with her hair. She was late for dinner, but she didn't move away from the window. Ginny lingered until her eyes were dry from the involuntary tears. Someone was bound to notice, and Ginny didn't want anyone thinking that she cried. It was just a reaction, which coincidentally enough, she also didn't want anyone to know about.

She scrutinised her reflection. Ginny nodded to herself; it was passable. She grabbed the scrap of parchment and scrunched it up. She tossed it absently over her shoulder into a small bin under the window and grabbed her key. She'd see Colin tomorrow, he could do without one final letter.

Fred and George left their room barely a minute after her. Ginny paused, and fell into step with the duo.

"Great minds think alike," remarked Fred, with a nod over at Ginny. His eyes lingered on her for a long moment but they drifted away without noticing anything.

"Fools seldom differ," Ginny returned with a quick grin that disappeared quickly from the effort of maintaining it. Hopefully dinner would end quickly, and then she could hide in her room without a need to mask anything because there would be no one around to worry.

"There is a fine line between geniuses and idiots," added George, perhaps feeling a bit left out of the banter.

"I think we're on the wrong side."

"Probably," was George's laconic response.

"Nothing we can do about that," said Ginny. This smile wasn't quite so grudging and Ginny let herself entertain the notion that dinner might not be awful.

"That's were you're wrong, dear sister," said Fred. He rubbed his hands together with malicious glee. Out of reflex, he skipped the last two steps; George, of course, in unison.

Ginny rolled her eyes at them. They were such big kids. It took her mind away from the grown up troubles and tribulations that she'd rather not have to tackle with.

"I am?" she asked blankly, taking several quick steps to catch up again with the twins. She hadn't made the hop, and fell out of beat. "How do we get passed the line? Jump it?" she observed scornfully.

Ginny visualised a bunch of sheep hopping over a fence. They were all cute, and somewhere between scrawny lambs and plump sheep. One after another they hopped over. Ginny suspected that method wouldn't work for them. They didn't have a field or a fence for starters, and although Ginny didn't know London well, she suspected that there wasn't an abundance of fields around. Buildings, sure, but not fields.

"Nope. Can't go around it either."

"Or under it for that matter."

Ginny's eyes lit up as inspiration struck her. She snapped her fingers and waved one for emphasis of her great idea. "We could move the line."

"We might just not have to disown her," said Fred to George. There was a broad grin on his face.

George wore a matching one, but he nodded sombrely, pretending to think it over, and said after a long moment, "There may be hope for her yet."

A flight of stairs later, the silliness turned into random inanity and Ginny was officially an accomplice to their schemes. She was still smirking when they entered the parlour, although they changed topic. Mum's ears twitched, sensing the hidden plot.

"She's got ears like a bat, doesn't she?" muttered Fred. A hint of resentment coloured his voice. They had all been caught out more than once by Mum overhearing something she wasn't supposed to.

"More like a whale."

"Maybe a weird bat/whale hybrid thing?" offered Ginny as an alternative suggestion. She took a moment to picture a whale hanging upside off a beam with bat wings. That combination couldn't work.

She shook her head, and flopped into an empty seat at the end of the table. She didn't know where those images came from. Clearly, lack of sleep wasn't doing her any good.

* * *

A single light-bulb hung in the middle of attic's ceiling. A film of dust strangled its dim glow, maintaining the shadowy interior. A cobweb hung from the bulb across into a corner where a spider lurked. 

More spiders probably scuttled around the worn floorboards and broken objects. Old toys, a cracked mirror, wrecked furniture...all atypical and forgotten. Someone had stacked cardboard boxes into numerous piles. A non-descript trunk, an ancient wardrobe and a worn suitcase were pushed against the wall. Nothing particularly memorable. Just the ghostly sensation of abandonment.

She eyed the boxes, but resisted the urge to open one. It felt too reminiscent of Pandora. There wasn't anything of much interest here, only the imagination of children inventing ghosts and long-lost treasure. And of course, remnants of half-forgotten memories and hard lessons learnt.

The spider darted along a wall.

"Hi, little guy," said Ginny, navigating the junk to stand near the spider. He was the only other living presence in the attic, a place too large for one.

A hand snapped out and crushed it, leaving a discoloured stain on the wall. Ginny flinched, and spun around to face the murder. The murder stood barely over four foot, perhaps nine years old, with empty dark eyes and tightly cropped hair. Ginny stared at the child, unable to comprehend its actions or appearance.

She, Ginny assumed that the child was a she despite the unusual hairstyle, hadn't made a sound. Just appeared, chunky black boots silent against the creaky floorboards. Ginny stared at the shoes, to avoid looking into remorseless eyes. They were recently polished, reflecting a shine from the light bulb, and Ginny's pale face.

"Hey!" snapped Ginny, and stepped away from the child, distancing herself from the little monster. "What the hell was that about?

"I eliminated the spider," she replied. Her voice was as bland as her eyes.

"Why?" asked Ginny. It was a hypocritical question; Ginny was guilty of killing a dozen spiders, but the cold ruthlessness horrified her. "It's unnecessary."

"It is the objective. The objective is all that matters," the thing snapped, reciting a rule drummed into her head.

"Let's just agree to disagree here," muttered Ginny. There was no arguing with that confident conviction, not without fear of being persuaded, and Ginny didn't want to become_ that_.

"Who are you anyway?" questioned Ginny.

The hand, little fingers, snapped up into a salute which was held, and she stood impossibly straight. "X-5 486 reporting for duty."

Ginny's eyes widened briefly before narrowing in suspicion. She crossed her arms and regarded the killer suspiciously. "Who told you to say that?"

486 shrugged, and her hand dropped down again to hang limply by her side. She drifted over to the broken mirror and peered into it.

Ginny trailed after her. She meet the child's eyes in the mirror.

"Do you believe what you see or see you believe?" 486 said slowly, as though repeating meaningless but carefully memorised words.

"You're_ not _me."

"_I'm_ _not you_.

"Same difference."

"You become what you once where. You are who you used to be. I am who I will be," recited the child, mindless citing off what could be a twisted poem.

"What I currently am is all that matters. The past can stay in yesterday and the future in tomorrow. It's today," said Ginny, a ring of mockery in her tone as she mimicked the speaking pattern.

The child turned around, body slowly twisting, and her eyes meet Ginny's. They weren't empty now, an unholy gleam leant them depth.

"Why do you want to know about the past then?"

* * *

After the tea trolley rolled by, Ginny almost felt human, but that was probably the sugar in the Pumpkin Pasty talking. A betraying yawn escaped Ginny's mouth. She slept terribly last night. After that weird dream, she had been unable to fall back to sleep, just tossed and turned, and it seemed finally fell asleep minutes before Mum burst into her room insisting that Ginny get up. 

Promptly, Jake yawned as well, mouth creaking open, and his eyes fluttering shut. The morning passed like that in a sleepy daze of contagious yawns. At least Jake had an excuse for being tired. He had to travel from America to get the Hogwarts Express; Ginny, on the other hand, could have almost walked to the train station.

Jake's obsidian eyes blinked slowly, almost as though they wanted to stay closed. The war against fatigue darkened his eyes. He didn't see the scenery blurring by, but rather lay sprawled down taking up the spare seats in the compartment.

Ginny and Colin sat across the table, looking positively chirpy compared to Jake. Ginny had joined Colin, something in Jake's expression cautioned her to avoid sitting next to him, and her heart plummeted. Of course things would be odd after last year, but she didn't deserve the hard edge of rage, or the fake smile, not from Jake.

"Well?" Ginny prompted, voice containing contradictory gentleness and annoyance. It wasn't like Jake to be so tired. He was hardly a morning person, but after initial grumpiness he functioned normally until nightfall when he entered a mode of hyper-awakeness that kept him bouncing around until well after nighttime.

His head rose fractionally and he peered disinterestedly at several cards in his hands, mind sluggishly switching on as he re-entered the card game. Colin made him play, claiming that it would be no fun with just two people. He wasn't a very good player, taking naps between his moves.

"Go fish," Jake mumbled.

He avoided looking at Ginny.

Ginny made a face and grabbed a card from the deck in the middle of the table, trying to pretend like she didn't notice his behavior, because she didn't know how to react. She dreaded this, but she hadn't really expect it. "Could have sworn you had a seven."

"Do you have any ones?" Jake asked Colin, a yawn interrupting his question. His summer must not have been very restful. There was an exhaustion about him that couldn't have been just one night's poor sleep. Maybe something happened at home, and his weirdness wasn't about Ginny? Tentative hope rose.

"Yep," replied Colin. He handed over the card, and eyed Ginny smugly over his three remaining ones, certain that he would win. Victory danced through his grey eyes. Mousy brown hair compliment his nondescript appearance. He looked exactly like he did at the start of the summer, custom tan and spattering of freckles on his nose, excluding.

Jake blinked at his cards and then blinked again. He muttered a curse and then threw a disgruntled hand in the air. "_I_ don't have any ones."

"Clap clap for the handicap," Colin taunted, and he gave Jake a very slow sarcastic round of applause. A lopsided grin pulled at his lips removing any harshness from the mockery.

Ginny arched an eyebrow. "I bet you've been dying to use that for months," she observed shrewdly.

She shook her head in amusement. Someone who didn't have six older brothers might have found it offensive, but Ginny had heard worse, if less creative. Where did he come up with those things? That was just plain Colin, random with a quirky energy. He was easily overlooked, but Ginny appreciated the vibrancy he had, especially after visiting him that one time in the Hospital Wing when he was so still and pale. She never returned because it scared her so much to see what he was reduced to.

"Yeah," Colin admitted. "It's like the catchphrase for my brother's school. They're all saying it there when someone does something intelligent like Jake."

"Hey!" Exclaimed Jake but without any real vehemence. "I'm tired. Leave me alone." It sounded dangerously like a whine. Ginny might have commented but the words barely left his mouth when the train started to slow down.

Ginny looked passed Colin, out the completely black window. They couldn't be there yet. She checked her watch. The train was getting slower and slower. As the noise of the pistons fell away, the wind and rain sounded louder than ever against the windows.

Ginny exchanged an analysing look with Jake, and wordlessly got up to investigate, not noticing the brief normalcy in the action. She poked her head out, and searched for someone with an answer. All along the carriage, heads were sticking out of compartments. None of them had answers.

The train jolted to a stop, and then, without warning, all the lamps went out and the train was plunged into total darkness.

"What's going on?" piped up Colin.

"I don't know," said Ginny with a frown. She didn't like this. Already people were panicking. There were a few excited screams and nervous giggles, and voices overlapped all trying to yell over each other. "I'll go bug the driver."

The corridor was dark but if she concentrated and squint she could make out vague shapes of people and walls nearby. Ginny kept her hands out in front of her to prevent to possibility of bumping into someone. Her steps grew more confident the closer she got to the driver. She stuck close to the wall, there were more shapes around now, and Ginny was so focused on avoiding them, she forgot to think about anyone trying to leave the compartments. She didn't have time to react when a door slid up, just collided.

"Who's that?" A voice demanded of her.

"Who's that?" challenged Ginny. Her face scrunched with the squint with the effort of recognising the blurry outline. The girl sounded familiar but it was hard to tell over the pounding rain.

"Ginny?"

"Hermione?"

"What are you doing here?"

Ginny opened her mouth to reply, but hesitated and then lied. It was too early to know how people would react to her, but she didn't want to doom herself, by broadcasting behavior that could be twisted to seem suspicious and dodgy.

"I was looking for Ron-"

"Come in and sit down-"

Ginny obeyed, needing to validate her lie. It was dark in the compartment, the enclosed space and several bodies made it smaller and darker. Ginny closed her eyes and took a deep breath, the pounding rain soothed her; this wasn't the Chamber of Secrets or the tomb. Nothing to freak out about.

Ginny lowered herself into a seat.

"Not here! I'm here," Harry eeped.

Ginny sprang up from her crouched position, drawing away from the warmth of practically sitting on him. Ginny sucked in a deep breath and covered her face. She mumbled an apology and stumbled over Neville's foot into a free seat, wishing to be sucked up into a black hole. Could that situation have gone any less gracelessly?

"Quiet," snapped a hoarse voice. Old and unfamiliar, not one of the students, who were generally the only people who travelled by the Hogwarts Express.

Ginny heard a soft, crackling noise and a shivering light filled the compartment. The man held a handful of flames. They illuminated his tired, grey face and weary eyes. Ginny studied him, trying to find a reason why he unnerved her. His face was too young for his hair to be grey. It was the only thing she could find wrong about him.

"Stay where you are," he ordered. He got to his feet like an old man with arthritis. His exhaustion rivalled Jake's, bone-tired and deadened.

No one had a chance to do anything before the door slid open. Standing in the doorway was a cloaked figure that towered to the ceiling. Its face was hidden beneath a hood. An intense cold swept over Ginny. It clenched around her heart, which pounded furiously in her chest. Adrenalin pumped through her body and blood rushed in her ears. She was being dragged backwards, downwards into a past that was hidden from her memory.

From far away, she she heard a gunshot and the sound of a body crumpling to the floor. She tried to help whoever it was, but she couldn't move, and a heavy snowstorm blocked her view. It was freezing. She shook with the cold, her feet numb separate entities from her body. Numb all over, that was all she could feel, and then nothing.

"Are you alright, Ginny?"

486 faced the boy, uncertain how It should respond to the question. It hadn't taken Common Verbal Usage yet, and although It recognised the word 'alright', It wasn't confident of its meaning or in what context it could be used. 486 nodded, the safest possible response for the moment.

Having satisfied the question, 486 ignored the round-face boy. He was of little interest to her, clearly not a solider or a figure of authority. It scanned the room, identifying it as a small compartment on a train somewhere in the country. Not America.

It focused Its attention on the boy. His accent was unfamiliar, and It doubted whether it was an American one. He sounded nasal and high-pitched.

"Where are we?" It asked.

486 didn't know what purpose it had here. A mission, perhaps, but the objective and the mission itself was unknown to It. This wasn't Manticore, but it felt like Psy Ops. Cold and foreign, and terrifying. 486 was a good solider, and good soldiers didn't go to Psy Ops. Good soldiers don't forget their missions either. The mission was all that mattered.

"I don't know, somewhere on the way to Hogwarts at any rate," the boy replied. He looked around also and shrugged.

He gave no additional information. Was this a test? 486 nodded to Itself. It must be. It was the only explanation that made sense. It wouldn't failed, and end in Psy Ops for real. Clearly, the boy was some part of the test. Whether he was actually a civilian and tricked into thinking this was real, It didn't know, but it wasn't 486's place to question it. Either way, Its interactions in this strange environment were being monitored.

"Are you okay?" 486 asked, looking at the boy with new concern. He was very pale, and it only seemed appropriate that It should react accordingly, and even better to attempt CVU. 'Okay' was a term 486 actually knew, and was proud to be able to reproduce it.

He shot her a worried smiled over the three people on the ground, that 486 had already noticed and dismissed as unimportant. "Mostly, I lost my toad though," he replied. He quivered like he wasn't as fine as he let on.

486 ignored the reference to a toad, unable to understand its context within the question. What function had an amphibian with anything? It nodded, as though the reference meant something to It. When It replied, it was carefully considered reply, and the boy accepted the projected sympathy at face value.

"I'm sure he will show up."

"Yeah."

Conversation done. 486 searched for Its next task. A man lurked near the door. None of the young civilians acknowledged his presence. Outside military influence there was a chain of command, otherwise everything would dissolve into chaos and disorder. It was as apparent as the colour of the sky. 486 didn't know how _that _command operated, and her initial assumption that the older man was a superior, appeared incorrect.

He raised his eyebrows in response to 486's scrutiny, and there may have been an impilict question there, but 486 wasn't very good at recognising those, and ignored it. The man reached into his pocket and took out a rectangular object. It was colourful, and caught 486's attention. The man fidgeted with it, and removed the layer, revealing a solid brown mass inside. He scrunched up the vibrant paper, and stuck it back into his pocket. 486's interest wavered, but It noted that when he broke the brown object into smaller pieces, everyone's eyes darted towards him.

"Here. Eat it. It'll help," he said. His gentle tone disguised the abrupt order, but the four civilians took the substance anyway. Perhaps, he was an authority figure?

"What was that thing?" asked the previously unconscious boy. He twisted the chocolate in his hands, agitated, and fearful.Weak.

"A Dementor," he answered.

486 didn't disregard the conversation or the man's exit, but rather initiated parallel processing, and examined the substance and also created and discarded potential plans. It liked to be occupied and multitasking gave It peace from the pounding in Its head.

It felt like it was being stretched further than possible, another presence worming its way into It, and trying to take over. It hadn't eaten the substance, and couldn't blame the sensation on it. The jumbled conversation didn't help, the confusing terms and foreign phrases. It was a relief when the man returned.

"I haven't poisoned the chocolate, you know."

Chocolate. 486 stared at it, and against her better judgement raised it to Its lips; there was something tantilising about the word and Its curiousity was rewarded by a sudden warmth which slipped down Its throat and into Its stomach. It didn't feel like Psy Ops anymore. The affects tingled through Its body, and 486 was lulled into a pleasant haze as the train rocked onto its destination.

Freed and gone.

Ginny floated back to the surface. A deep violent shudder ran down through her body. The aftertaste of chocolate was mingled with bile, and Ginny wrapped her arms around her stomach in a self-hug. Whatever that was, it was far too reminiscent of Tom Riddle for her comfort. A memory that had a life force of its own, that could use her.

It never happened before. The Dementor must have triggered it. That theory sounded better than 486 randomly invading Ginny's body. Not good, but better, and Ginny supposed that she'd have to live with that.

Her arms didn't itch anymore, the parasite wriggling underneath was temporarily gone, but they had a tendency to reproduce, and anything could lie dormant inside her, ready to awaken. Ginny would destroy it.

It was unnatural and wrong, and Ginny wanted it gone.


	3. Hidden

_**Chapter Two: Hidden**_

_All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem - Martin Luther King Jr., 'Strength to Love, 1963._

* * *

Ginny stamped her foot, and suppressed a growl of frustration. She abandoned Ron and the others, in favour of finding _her_ friends, but hadn't considered the difficulty of that in this madness. All the students, bar the first years as in tradition, were trudging across the rough mud track. The rain pelted down, hindering visibility, and Ginny was about ready to give up and just grab a carriage by herself, when they came into sight, a couple of metres ahead; Colin sliding slightly beside Jake's graceful ease. 

Ginny pushed over to the boys. They disappeared temporarily from her view amongst the taller students; they reappeared, stopped, and half angled towards her. Ginny frowned, and focused on them. Colin waved his hand with an exaggerated slowness in front of Jake's eyes and said something. She couldn't make out the words. Some quip perhaps, maybe about Jake's tiredness, only Jake didn't look tired anymore. His face was pinched and rain trickled down his cheeks. He might have been staring at a Dementor, but only a carriage lay in front of his wild gaze.

Ginny quickened her step now, and pushed her way past a group of Hufflepuff girls, one of whom shot her a vicious look. Ginny ignored them, intent on getting to Colin and Jake. Something was very wrong. The lack of physical evidence twisted the spiral of fear in her stomach even tighter.

"What _are _those things?" Jake asked in an oddly, quiet voice. Ginny barely heard him over the hordes of students and the endless pelting rain.

Colin frowned. There was no trace of amusement or even faint annoyance on his face now. "Carriages?" he offered, glancing back and forth between Jake and the coach they stood before. His eyes then rested on Ginny.

She shrugged helplessly. She didn't know what was up with Jake, just that he was acting very weird, _even_ considering his behaviour earlier. On some level, everyone seemed to notice, a circle had formed, separating them from everyone else – empty space, as though people knew there was something deeply wrong and didn't want to get involved. A more superficial level suggested that they wanted to get out of the rain quickly, and this carriage wasn't worth the effort, and getting drenched when there were a hundred more.

"No," said Jake, and gave Colin a withering look, that was more of his custom, recovering rapidly from whatever shocked him. He pointed towards the carriages. "The things pulling them,"

"There's nothing there, man," said Colin. His camera hung loosely around his neck, until now forgotten, but he raised it and with careful consideration took a picture of the empty spot. He paused, and in an afterthought he took another several, irrefutable proof that he was right. "I'll show you the picture later."

Jake turned desperate brown eyes on her and demanded, "Tell him there's something there."

Ginny stared at the space in front of the coach, wanting to see something for Jake's sake, and if sheer will alone was enough, something would have appeared. She shook her head and pinned her eyes on Jake. "Sorry," she said simply.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, it appeared, a blurry haze, like a monster lurking in the shadows. A sound, far off, grabbed her attention. It rang off in the dark distance. She couldn't tell where it came from, all Ginny knew, was that on some level, it existed. A gunshot. It sounded like a gun, but Ginny didn't know what guns sounded like, and with that realisation, the echo fell silent, and there was only the grim wind, preempting winter, chilled with the approach of death and decay.

Ginny saw it. It existed just out of sight like all the horrifying monsters terrorising children, lurking always out of the corner of the eye. If she turned and looked directly, it would be gone. Her eyes watered, whether from the biting wind, or the strain of not look directly at creature, Ginny didn't know. She was transfixed by the vague shape – a horse with a dragon's head and wings-, a fleshless black coat hung to its skeletal frame.

She surrendered her eyes towards it, and for one second its wide pupil-less eyes stared at her, and it was eerily familiar, looking right through her and sensing something that she couldn't, but then it was gone. The space it occupied was untouched. Ginny inched towards it, but Jake's hand held her back.

"You do," he accused, dark eyes alight, whatever was wrong with him in the morning, was now completely forgotten. Immaculate hair, disarrayed, like her own must be. Perfect composure and distance, abandoned, and still yet it grew; Colin was miles away in his bubble of normalcy.

"I thought...maybe for a second," said Ginny. She shrugged and spread her arms out, and with a frustrated laugh, proclaimed, "There is nothing there."

And there wasn't. The brief glimpse could have been anything, most likely an after-effect from the Dementor. It explained the gunshot, but now that Ginny thought about it; she knew of guns. Her muscles remembered the long time positioning herself and growing fidgety as she held the stance, hands supporting thin air where later a rifle replaced and it shuddered in her small hands. A gun. She knew all about them. Barely remembered it though.

"C'mon, we should get into the coach," said Colin; his gaze focused on the other coaches becoming smaller in the distance. Everyone left, and they were getting wetter by the second. There was nothing to be gained by lingering here.

Ginny nodded her agreement, and climbed into it. Hay tickled her nostrils. She rubbed her nose and sneezed, but choose to blame the damp chilliness that set into her bones rather than the hay. Jake joined her, with Colin bringing up the rear.

The carriage set off seemingly by itself, bumping and swaying, trundling towards a pair of magnificent wrought-iron gates which two Dementors stood guard by. A wave of sickness engulfed Ginny. One Dementor could be written off as a coincidence, but not several. Their presence infiltrated Hogwarts. She closed her eyes until they had passed, and when she opened them, she watched Colin. He leaned out of the tiny window, appreciating the many turrets and towers, and he took half a dozen pictures, but there was no real passion, just the deadness of going through motions.

Ginny pursed her lips, and shook her head. It wasn't the Dementors that did that to him, but rather herself and Jake. Jake's knee trembled, foot jingling up and down, but otherwise motionless.

It was a tense, silent group that hurried up the steps into the Entrance Hall. They beelined towards the Great Hall, but a silky voice stopped them in their tracks.

"Tyler, Weasley, Creevy."

Ginny stifled a groan and turned around to face Snape. His black eyes peered down his hooked nose at them, lips curved into a grimace that could pass for a malicious smile. Ginny shivered; now inside, the wetness and coldness penetrated into her skin. Snape didn't seem to mind the cold, but he always struck Ginny as a person who never felt warmth

After a short, intense game of Chicken, Jake gave in, and spoke for them all, "Yes sir?" He stared down at his shoes, tone only borderline respectful, but passable. He looked up now, features carefully schooled into a blank mask.

"Timekeeping is an essential skill, which none of you chose to learn over the summer. Thirty points from Gryffindor," said Snape smoothly. "Let it be a reminder for you not to show up late to my class."

Colin bristled, eyes jerking to his watch, and mouth twitching, but warning looks from Jake and Ginny kept him from piping up. Colin hadn't attended enough potion classes to realise not to cross Snape. He didn't even have a sibling in the school to warn him in the danger of infuriating Snape. Ginny might have chanced it, but didn't want to risk the loss of further points, and only two minutes in the castle.

"Yes sir," was the chorused replied, Colin a beat behind, and a touch begrudging. A mutinous frown set to break out his features. This wasn't the first impression he wanted to make, and not defending it only added insult to injury.

Snape's eyes lingered on Jake, daring him to comment, wanting a reaction, but all he ever got was disinterested politeness. Jake's sister was a Slytherin, and Jake being sorted into Gryffindor was like a personal insult to Snape. Ginny suspected that all these little encounters were about that one small fact. Snape's eyes looked passed Ginny -her existence wasn't even worth his contempt- to Colin. He sneered at the camera, and then stared at Colin, a probing gaze, met with the electric defiance in Colin's eyes, but Snape didn't comment and Colin managed to bite his tongue.

Snape made a theatrical hand gesture that dripped with sarcasm and scorn, waving them into the Great Hall. Jake immediately turned on heel, and Colin trailed after him. Ginny watched them for a second, saw Colin's eyes rise to gape at the ceiling, incidence dismissed, and Jake's hunched shoulders and clenched fists.

"Waiting for something, Weasley?"

Snape looked at her. Ginny shifted under the analysing stare, shoes squelching, and she nodded, committing herself to this decision. There was a glint in Snape's eyes. She hesitated; did he see Tom Riddle in her? Tom Riddle promised that he left himself in her, and Ginny couldn't find truth in his words, but Snape made her doubt. He'd know, wouldn't he? See some inspired mannerism...

"The creatures pulling the coaches," said Ginny.

She paused, observing Snape's minute reaction, brief surprise across his sallow face, suspicious eyes and a delayed thin smirk. He knew what they were. Ginny suspected, but this confirmed it. Even if he wouldn't say anything, at least now she knew they were actually real, one less thing to haunt them.

"What are they?"

"Nothing you need to concern yourself with."

Ginny nodded. She anticipated an answer along those lines and didn't argue or plead. She didn't want Snape to know how much they freaked her out, that she personally needed to know what they were, and that it was anything more than a fleeting curiosity. Like she didn't realise that there was some sort of requirement to be able to see them, one which Jake qualified for, and she hovered on the brink of, and practically every other student didn't. Because they'd both know, that she never escaped from that diary and all its consequences.

"Okay," Ginny said softly.

Neither Colin nor Jake remarked on the brief conversation. Colin just said, "We're waiting for an ideal moment to sneak in."

The Great Hall erupted into applause. A blonde first year trotted over to join Gryffindor. It was a sea of pointed black hats; each long house table was lined with students, their faces glimmering by the light of thousands of candles, which floated over the tables in midair.

Jake darted forward, followed closely by Ginny and Colin; they slipped mostly unnoticed to their table and sat down near the new girl. A few heads turned to them, but apparently they weren't interesting, not compared to the dwindling line of first years.

Professor Flitwick, a tiny wizard with a shock of white hair, held a list in his hands. "Scott Sarah," he called, and the girl scurried over to the Sorting Hat.

"Where were you?" Ron hissed out of the corner of his mouth, his eyes focused on the hat. Hermione and Harry, like bookends beside Ron, where suspiciously absent, in line with Snape and Professor McGonagall's empty chairs at the High Table.

"Snape was in a mood," mumbled Ginny, preoccupied by the mystery on her hands. The absent glaze in Colin's face, and the icy shield that was somehow worse than darkness in Jake's eyes revealed that they mediated on similar topics, and the feast vanished quickly, morning arriving all too soon.

Ginny rubbed her eyes and squinted at her timetable. She let it drop with a disgruntled expression and poked the now unappetising scrambled eggs she choose for breakfast. "Double Potions with Slytherins," she stated by means of an explanation.

George patted her shoulder and made a sympathetic face. "Still, better you than me," he added with a wink and strolled down the length of Gryffindor table to hand Ron his timetable.

"Is it too late to change house and join Hufflepuff?" Mary wondered hopefully. She picked up Ginny's timetable and scanned it.

"'Fraid so," mumbled Jake, and collapsed down opposite Mary. His own timetable was scrunched in his fist.

Mary gave him a custom glare, but it was completely wasted. Jake wasn't in the mood for their usual repartee, just grabbed a slice of toast, and didn't respond.

Colin spoke up in the silence. "What's so bad about Potions?"

His eyes darted between all of them in quick succession, otherwise entirely still, like a scared animal. His absence last year left him ignorant not only of dreaded potions but the dynamic between Jake and Mary. Ginny felt a spiteful pleasure that someone else would be stuck in the middle with her.

"Everyone hates Mondays, they're universally despised, and so is Snape, and together they're a disastrous combination," volunteered Jake through a mouthful of toast which muffled his words.

Mary grinned, lips quirking up in a mischievous glee. "But not quite as bad as you and Ginny in potions," she pointed out slyly.

Ginny grimaced, and her eyes focused vaguely in the distance, recalling exactly how little (or not), their screw up was. One wrong ingredient, very little attention and Colin in the Hospital Wing, was a very bad combination. Snape's ire poured down on them for weeks, accompanied by many detentions.

Colin straightened, eyes lighting with interest. "Sounds like there's a story there."

Mary, on the other hand, lost interest, as Alice and Emma arrived and plopped down beside her. She couldn't retract her comment, and Colin waited expectantly.

"There was a big explosion," said Ginny without any trace of emotion in her voice. It was flat recollection from a chaotic scene.

"And?"

"Probably best you don't know all the details, or we'll drag you down with us. You've got an airtight alibi, don't want to ruin that," said Jake.

He shared a look with Ginny, and inclined his head. She nodded. The communication went completely unnoticed by Colin, who had begun to look slightly worried.

"Uh, guys? What exactly did you do?" There was an edge of panic in his voice which rose in panic as he imagined all the possibilities. It was frightening.

"It looked worse than it really was, I thought, in our defence," remarked Ginny. An evil gleam appeared in her eyes. "I mean, an act of terrorism."

"What!" Colin's eyes were quite round now.

"Total exaggeration," Jake soothed, with calming hand gestures. "Less than half of the class had to go to the Hospital Wing. The Pulse, now, that's true terrorism."

"The who?" enquired Ginny, sidetracked from Colin's rapidly paling face and the carefully weaved retelling.

"The Pulse," repeated Jake. "Over in America a few years back. Bunch of guys set off an Electromagnetic pulse over California."

Ginny stared at him. Her eyes were blank, his jargon was incomprehensible. Electromagnetic Pulse? That, in no way explained what The Pulse was. In the back of her head, the words niggled. "Which is what exactly?"

Jake returned the blank look for a second, and a long beat passed while he tried to form a decent explanation in his mind. Probably the given explanation relied on stuff she wasn't familiar with, and suddenly he understood why Colin drove her up the walls with questions about the Wizarding world. Although, it had been a long time since Colin jabbered on excitedly about that stuff.

"You know what technology is?" asked Jake.

"Vaguely."

"Lets say it's magic, and pretended that the EMP is basically someone snapping loads of wands. Magic can't work anymore and everything that relies on it is screwed. Pure chaos," said Jake. "Only it involves computers and lost data and stuff. Dodgy foundations always fall the hardest."

"Okay," said Ginny and nodded to herself. She recalled the strings of the tapestry, and said, "Puts us to shame."

Mary scoffed and rolled her eyes. Her foot lashed out to kick Jake under the table. "They're winding you up," she said matter-of-fact, zoning in on their conversation.

"Ah, but who started it?" taunted Jake, mocking half smirk, firmly planted on his lips. It was no wonder it infuriated Mary, and the more annoyed she became, the more amused Jake felt. It was a vicious circle of barbed comments and vicious loathing.

"Shut up, Jake," snarled Mary. Usually a sweet girl, Jake effortlessly bought out the worst in her, and frequently, these conversations dissolved hateful words and cruelty.

Ginny gave Colin a pained look and threw her eyes up to heaven, or at very least, to the enchanted ceiling, which cleared up with the outside weather, now merely reflecting an overcast grey sky. Here they went again. Ginny knew it was inaccurate to recall the squabbling duo as constant bitter enemies, but it felt that way, although most of time they managed to get along quite peacefully.

These were just moments. Moments imprinted into Colin's mind. He bit his lip, and looked like he wanted to say something, do something, but was completely at loss how to react, and mostly he just looked devastated, like he interrupted his parents screaming at each other. Colin didn't like arguments.

Ginny nudged his foot under the table. Colin's eyes snapped toward her. Ginny jerked her head at the door. Colin followed her gaze, and after a long incomprehensible moment, nodded his consent. Ginny rose to her feet, and pulled Colin up with her, muttering some vague but passable excuse, and they waited until they were out of the Great Hall before speaking.

"Probably should have reminded Jake about Potions," Colin remarked without any real conviction in his voice.

"He has an excellent memory when it suits him," Ginny scoffed. He used it against her a number of times to echo a comment or throw her words back in her face, always with that smug little quirk of his lips.

"Clearly not when making up stories about Potions," grumbled Colin.

Ginny grinned, but managed to stifle her laugh, when she saw Colin's disgruntled expression. She held up her hands in surrender. "Sorry, you're just a perfect victim," she explained with an unapologetic shrug.

Her amusement faded as they descended the stairs into the dungeons. The gloom sucked all amusement and joy from the situation. It was Monday morning. They had double Potions with Slytherins. There was like forty Mondays left in the year. Weary resignation settled onto her shoulders.

"Tell me you haven't looked at your books all summer," Colin begged, forcing an ironic note into his voice, that didn't disguise his intention for asking.

"Not much. Worried?" Ginny spoke lightly with a teasing smile on her face. Her attempts were in vain. They couldn't hide from this anymore, and the dungeons had the perfect atmosphere for such a bleak, dark conversation. "You're like a potions whizkid. Snape won't eat you."

Colin laughed weakly and played with the thick strap of his camera. He didn't meet Ginny's eyes, comfortable in the fact that she was listening. "Just, I missed most of the year. My dad didn't want me to come back, y'know? Really freaked him and Dennis out when I couldn't go home for Christmas for obvious reasons and they couldn't do a damn thing." Bitterness laced his tone.

Ginny nodded, but stayed quiet, not wishing to interrupt Colin's tirade and halt his confession. His face was blank, and he looked oddly detached, as though he wasn't in control of his own words.

"And maybe I was kind of scared too, but this is an honest to God magical castle. Wonderland always lingers in Alice's mind. I came back."

Ginny crossed her arms and dropped her gaze to the ground. She never thought of how hard it would have been for Colin to come back, too concerned with herself, and he didn't even have the reassurance of four brothers here. No one to count on but himself, and it was all Ginny's fault was happened to him lasted year. With friends like that...

"I know that I decided not the repeat, and McGonagall and Dumbledore didn't try to convince me otherwise, but we all know that I'm too far behind in everything. I was only ever around for the introduction in subjects. They're going to change their minds and stick me back into first year, and Dennis can see was a failure I am," finished Colin miserably.

"Dennis doesn't think you're a failure," said Ginny quietly. "You're his big brother. You're away in some magical place and got attacked by that thing –which I'm still infinitely sorry about- but survived, came back with pictures and all. You're a hero to him."

Colin gave Ginny a suspicious look, unconvinced whether she was being genuine, or if she was just mocking him, but he must have seen sincerity in her expression. "You think?" He asked tentatively.

"I know."

It sounded corny, even in her head, but it was what Colin needed to hear. He perked up, something that Ginny found impossible because they were getting closer to Snape's classroom.

"It's not your fault," he said suddenly changing the topic. His hands were clenched into fists, and his head titled at defiant angle, challenging her to argue and wallow in her guilt.

"I didn't point a wand at you and say zap, but indirectly…I _knew_ better than to do what I did."

"You're just a kid. You're allowed make mistakes. Better to screw up now and do stupid things where there's a safety net than in ten years' time," Colin pointed out, tone matter-of-fact, but it failed to reassure.

"It could have cost you your life."

"I'm fine. Honestly."

"Well, I'm still sorry."

"You can make it up to me by helping me out. I've got bucket loads of information to work through still. Spells to master."

"I can do that."

Ginny offered him a thin smile, and if it was rueful neither of them mentioned it.


	4. Ambition

_**Author's note: **My promise to update every two weeks didn't last very long, huh? I got this up as quickly as possible, this last month has been chaotic. Thank God it's over. Hopefully, the next update will be in two weeks, and I'll try and keep that as fixed as posible._

_He who blinded by ambition, raises himself to a position whence he cannot mount higher, must thereafer fall with the greatest loss_ -_ Niccolo Machiavelli._

* * *

**CHAPTER THREE: Ambition**

Ginny gestured for Colin to enter ahead of her, mimicking Snape's desire for theatrics.

Colin shook his head and smiled at her antics. He slipped in before her and sat down at the desk Ginny and Jake chose at last year. It was perfectly positioned, far enough from Snape's desk for safety but not so far, that Snape haunted them for daring to try get away. It was on the left of the classroom, convenientely out of sight from Snape's glower. It made Potions slightly more bearable.

Ginny flopped down on a stool and watched Colin. He set out his equipment with deliberate carefulness. He looked the scales and then his hands froze in midair. Something flashed through his eyes, and Colin set the scales down with a quiet thump. The moment passed, both of them ignoring it, because then it might not exist; and the facade Colin created would be perfect. Organised and in control.

Finally everyone arrived; Jake and Mary darting in just before the bell, she was slightly out of breath. They must have ran the entire way, and were rewarded by the worst desk in the classroom, the one right in front of Snape's desk that no one was suicidal enough to choose. It was the only available desk. Jake made a face and slumped down on the desk, grudgingly accepting of his faith. Mary lingered, dark frown on her face, not willing to give in so easily but Snape's black eyes sent her scurrying to the seat.

Snape surveyed the class, lip curled up into a sneer, equally unimpressed as he had been last year. He didn't make a speech this time, just took the register, and started the lesson. He scanned the class, narrowing his selection down to two victims. Ginny felt Colin tense up beside her. He cast a despairing eye at his book, as though hoping that whatever question he might be asked, that the answer was conveniently opened on that particular page.

Ginny didn't have the will to do the same. A sinking feeling developed in her stomach. Fifty-fifty chance. It was going to be her. Inevitable.

"Weasley! What would the Abeotinctan Aromatic be used for?"

Despite her grim acceptance, she couldn't help but start upon hearing her name. She glanced around the dungeon for inspiration. The name didn't sound vaguely familiar, nothing she could attempt to waffle about, and maybe that was for the best. The twenty cauldrons crouched between wooden desks, on which brass scales stood and jars of ingredients, didn't help. Nor did the picked animals floating in jars around the walls. Although they were a great distraction. Her and Jake used to waste class guessing what was in each jar.

Finally, Ginny met Snape's eyes. His trademark sneer was firmly in place. This was her punishment for asking him the question. Children should be seen and not heard, preferably not seen either. Snape lived and would die by that motto. Why did Dumbledore hire him? The man hated children and was a poor teacher. Brilliant maybe, but the most brilliant were really any good of teachers.

"I don't know, sir."

"Didn't even think of opening Magical Drafts and Potions over the summer? Perhaps you think you're special after last year, but not in my class," said Snape. His voice was chilling, cold and cutting.

Ginny took a sharp intake of breath, and from a sudden whoosh, she knew that she wasn't the only one. The whole class was either staring at her or Snape now, Colin alternating between of them. Ginny tried to swallow a lump in her throat, and failing that, just shook her head. She couldn't tear her gaze away from his, drawn into a dark, treacherous lake. There was something that he wasn't saying. Ginny didn't say anything either, not with an audience practically twitching in anticipation for something to gossip about.

Snape broke the silence in the manner of a monk ending his vow of silence after years and just kneeling down and praying. He explained about the Abeotinctan Aromatic. His words were rapid, flowing from his mouth, muffled only by scratching quills, and during an infrequent pause, only silence echoed. The second half of the class was spent preparing the potion.

It was an awkward sort of thing, requiring exact measurements, and Ginny was certain that Snape picked it just to be cruel. Make them suffer. Colin was coping despite his worries, but he had always been good at potions.

Practise, he told Ginny something last year, with a wry smile. "I cook," he elaborated with a modest shrug. "It's very similar..."

"Damn your cooking skills then," said Ginny.

His smile turned sad, and then vanished completely, like it either hurt his heart or facial muscles too much to smile. Ginny didn't say anything, and since then it had become a disgusting habit, always letting things slide because it was easier. Safer.

Colin chopped a root into precise slices. His forehead was crinkled in concentration and each bit fell on the tray into exact pieces. Ginny admired his focus, she couldn't find it in herself.

Colin noticed her stare, and waved vaguely at the potion, that she should bestow more attention on. "Is that ready?"

Ginny peered into its murky depths and shrugged. "As much as it will ever be."

Colin leaned over and with a wooden spoon gave the cauldron's contents a poke. It rippled, and whatever he saw pleased him. Colin added the roots, continuously stirring, and the potion lightened to a dark blue colour, and developed into a sludgier texture. Bubbles danced across the surface, but Ginny quickly reduced the heat. The method was very adamant about not letting the potion boil over, and Ginny wasn't inclined to find out why.

Snape glided by. He spared a glance at their potion and gave a grudging nod, and paused then to criticise Jake and Mary. Jake wasn't bad at potions, at any rate he could follow instructions, but curiosity in this instance really did kill the cat. Experimentation was bad, and substitutions were a lot worse. Jake walked the line, and it made potions class a terrifying but fascinating thing.

"We're mostly done," said Colin.

Ginny glanced down at her notes, and raised an eyebrow. He was right. They must have got ahead somehow, because there was still plenty of time left in class.

"No last minute frantic rush – how wrong," Ginny remarked.

"You have to stop getting distracted by the floating stuff."

"I'm telling you. It's a hand. Honest."

"You need a biology book," Colin scoffed.

"It's been in a jar full of some mad liquid for probably years. Of course it's slighty less…"

"Like a hand?"

"Yeah. Well no. Once upon a time it was a hand, and then it got into Snape's path, and then it was a hand without a body."

"Hands without bodies don't look like that," Colin disagreed. Although his tone was hollow at this recurrent conversation, his eyes were alight, basking in the soothing familiarity. Something to fall back on when the silence became too long. "Haven't you ever seen _The Adams Family_?"

"Who?"

"It's a TV program...if you say what I _will_ dump that potion over your head," said Colin. He tagged on the last bit hastily but with no little amount of vehemence.

Ginny hid a grin as she pretended to check the temperature, as though reading a thermometer required a certain amount of concentration. She noted the reading and plucked it out of the cauldron, holding it between two fingers and at a distance before placing it down on a desk. "It's twenty-seven."

"Um, Ginny," said Colin almost nervously.

Ginny followed his finger, and saw the thermometer burn through parchment, taking not only the ink away but parchment and all. The desk got a bit singed, but thankfully the burning smell was hidden by the Abeotinctan Aromatics.

Ginny bit her lip, but the damage was done. In the notes that she could salvage, she read something about cleaning off the thermometer. Well, damn.

"I guess this is why it's made in two parts," said Colin. He eyed the cauldron, and then pulled on gloves, visions of it attacking his skin running through his mind. He carefully hoisted up the cauldron. Ginny pulled her eyes away from her ruined notes and grabbed a large beaker from the side of the desk and sieve.

Colin poured the concoction gently into the sieve, hand shaking slightly at the weight of the cauldron. Some of it seeped through into the beaker. Ginny paused, allowing the potion to separate, and patience spent, dumped the sludge in the sieve into her cauldron. The process of separation needed to be carried out several times before Colin's cauldron was empty, and the beaker half-full of the seperant. Ginny scribbled a label on the beaker and dropped it up to Snape's desk, smirking, aware of Colin's struggle with the clinging bits of sludge left in the cauldron.

The watery liquid was an unnecessary component of the potion, but one Snape claimed he had a use for. Ginny didn't want it, not since it destroyed her notes, didn't trust its contents. She placed it gently on the desk.

"Finished?" Snape enquired softly, appearing almost as if by Apparation behind her. His face was expressionless, no sneer now, everything hidden away.

Ginny nodded, hiding a flinch at his sudden appearance. "Just have to tidy up," she added, feeling that she should say something.

Snape nodded, but he was already distracted by the beaker. His black eyes peered into it, long pale fingers twisting the beaker around to examine in from a different angle. Ginny had no illusions that he wasn't carefully cataloguing her every expression and movement.

"Must be because I'm so special, sir," Ginny quipped.

"Unfortunately it doesn't improve your potion making skills in any regard. The consistency of this is deplorable," replied Snape. The words rolled off his tongue effortlessly and with a ruthless indifference.

"It fulfils its function," Ginny maintained. She shifted from foot to foot, arms crossed defensively in front of her chest. She stared at it too, but couldn't see whatever Snape did. She didn't have that expertise.

"By being barely adequate? That merely leads to incompetence. Your ambition?"

"I could only dream."

"Yet the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream," Snape quoted. He replaced the beaker on his desk, his attention on Ginny now, as if he thought his words might impress her.

Ginny arched an eyebrow at what surely must be a Slytherin motto. Very poetic. She didn't have a motto, but she could quote. Dad got a calendar, one with a quote for every day, and despite the superior amusement displayed by everyone else; they couldn't help but be attracted to the peculiar Muggle device. Pages ripped off to see the next inspiring or wry quote.

"Nothing truly valuable arises from ambition or from a mere sense of duty, it stems rather from love and devotion towards men and towards objective things," Ginny quoted, wracking her mind for the exact wording of a page that flitted away in the wind years ago.

"A man's worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions."

"Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions."

"Something small like a potion?"

A beat passed, and Ginny scrambled to edge out of the corner Snape backed her into. "Perhaps I feel that this potion is something major and important, because my priorities aren't distorted by ambition. He who sacrifices his conscience to ambition burns a picture to obtain the ashes."

"When you go in search for honey you must expect to be stung by bees."

Ginny saw the back of Snape's eyes, looked beyond the abyss and saw the brown rim. A prettier way of saying the end justifies the means. The exact way Tom Riddle operated, the way every bad person seemed to, and despite his mean demeanour, Ginny didn't think that Snape was bad. Dumbledore saw something in him. Believed that Snape wasn't like that, and it was good enough for her.

Very quietly she said, "Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself and falls on the other side."

Tom mentioned the play to her, and to impress him Ginny went off and found it. That was the easy part. Reading it wan an entirely different matter although she did get a sense of glee reading the witches' scenes. The Wyrd Sisters. The band probably hadn't read the play, but she appreciated the irony anyway.

She didn't wait to see Snape's reaction, just turned away and rejoined Colin who was still cleaning up. She grabbed his notes, and proceeded to rewrite them out. She didn't meet his eyes, because that might encourage him to ask what that was about, and to be honest, Ginny wasn't sure either.

And now she had to urge to reread Macbeth. Set things straight in her head, reclaim any thoughts that Tom Riddle might have poisoned, but mostly just to look at it from a different context. She might understand it this time.

Colin remained quiet. When Ginny risked a furtive glance to her side, he was absorbed in his Potions textbook. His yellow highlighter hovered in the air, darting down occasionally to highlight a sentence It was counterproductive. The bits that stood out to Ginny the most were the non-highlighted ones, but this method worked for Colin. Ginny thought that maybe he just liked using the Muggle object seeing as he was forbidden from writing essays in Biro. He complained continuouisley after the novelty of a quill wore off in first year.

Even now, his notes were in Biro. Snape didn't say a word to him about that, somehow a silent truce had been reached. As long as Snape didn't have to read anything written by Biro, he wouldn't complain. Everyone was happy.

Ginny returned to the notes. If she didn't finish it in class it would be work for tonight. Her quill scribbled rapidly across the page, only pausing to be dipped into ink, and then it was off again. Ginny barely reflected on the words. It was just some potion to remove permanent ink. She had a similar store bought version in her bag, nothing particularly noteworthy. Unless she wanted to get a tattoo and remove it before going home so Mum would never find out, but Ginny didn't want a tattoo. She already had one to mar her body.

Ginny's quill stopped moving. She rolled her eyes, the obvious solution dawning on her. If Colin witnessed the byplay in her head, he had a right to repeat his favourite handicap saying. She could remove the barcode. It would be no problem with the freshly-brewed strong potion. It was so fresh that it hadn't finished brewing, it needed to be stored overnight. She could easily take some. Snape would never know. She only needed a bit.

Ginny nodded, confirming her plan, and returned to the notes, with a half eye on Jake's dangerously simmering potion. She edged away just in case. Colin caught her eye and grinned, before he returned to frantically cramming. A small smile remained on his face. He wasn't getting any closer to Jake either. He saw what the potion did to Ginny's notes.

Hopefully the finished version wouldn't do that to her.

Ginny needed to do more research.

* * *

Ginny may have quoted Einstein but she didn't know who he was. Science was a foreign concept. She never embraced Muggle life, preferring the Wizarding World. She had little interest in mobiles, laptops and other Muggle inventions, and only had vague notions of what exactly they were. Couldn't use them, and had little desire either.

She aslo didn't know who Newton was , or why his three laws were fundamentally important. Some wizards smirked at his notions of gravity and Muggles' limitations, but Ginny was oblivious. She was oblivious to a lot of things.

She couldn't have known that the light breeze would have carried her doodle of the barcode out the window and into the dirty London streets. And if she did, she wouldn't have suspected that someone might have picked it up. It was even more improbable that the person could read the barcode. He knew a 486 once. The chances were a million to one, but luck was a fickle thing, and Ginny appeared to suffer it from both extremes.

Despite the statistical improbability (which Ginny didn't know about either, not at twelve), that course of events occurred. After years of anonymity, some knew that she still existed. An outside spectator might comment on the removal of the barcode being an act of freedom, and the discovery of the written one a form of slavery.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Perhaps she should read up on Newton. Although it would not have prevented the chain of events.

An unlucky coincidence.

* * *

Ginny half turned to eye her bare neck in the mirror. The black lines were gone. The only evidence of their former existence, was the pink tinge on her neck, but that could be written off as light sunburn. It hurt more than that, she had to sleep on her side otherwise the pillow pressed uncomfortably against her raw neck. It was gone; that was the important thing. No need to obsess over its painful removal. Ginny's fingers brushed against her neck slightly, and she gasped. Still sore.

Nonetheless, she grabbed her hairbrush, and ran it through her mane of hair. She carefully untangled her unruly hair and tied it up in a high pony. It took several attempts to smooth bumps out of hair, while holding the hair back, but Ginny managed. Ginny smiled brightly at her reflection and left the bathroom.

"Good morning," Mary mumbled through a yawn, but she was the only one who acknowledged Ginny's presence. Mary stared despairingly at her bed, trying to figure out how to smooth the bedcovers from the disarray they were in.

Emma darted into the barely vacant bathroom, grabbing it before Kate managed to pull herself out of bed. Alice had them all bet. She was already on her way out of the dormitory with a chirpy, "The early bird gets the worm."

"The second mouse gets the cheese," Ginny yelled after her. She rolled her eyes at Alice's back.. The girl made morning people look grumpy and tired. It was unnatural.

Alice stopped and half turned to give Ginny a horrified look. "Do you know how much fat is in cheese?"

"No?"

"Well either do I, but it's like fifty percent or something. I think I should cut it out altogether actually," Alice trailed off. She envisioned herself to be a twenty-stone monster, and was planning a strict diet. In all actuality, she was tiny, even Ginny towered over her in terms of height. Vertically challenged, Jake dubbed her, and in the secrecy of the Gryffindor second year girls' dormitory, she was also horizontally challenged.

"Does that mean you can have cheesecake?" Kate wondered. Her bedcovers were still pulled over her head, and muffled her voice. She was the anti-Alice, determined to sleep all those hours Alice missed.

"There isn't cheese in cheesecake," said Mary. A trace of doubt lingered in her confident words. None of them called her on it, because while they all dug into delicious cheesecake, none of them ever considered how the House Elves actually made it. The earliness of the morning also robbed Mary of the memory that House Elves liked making beds, and she was stealing their fun.

Out of habit Ginny made her bed. Mum screamed bloody murder when any of them forgot to make their beds. It was easier to endure than the 'Do you think I have nothing better to be doing with my time?' rant/lecture. It only took a minute, although Ron liked grumbling about it.

"Maybe the word itself is fattening," said Kate. She poked out from the warm of her bed, a wicked gleam in her brown eyes. "Cheese, cheese, cheese," she chanted.

Alice clamped her hands over her ears. "I'm not listening," she shrieked, and bounced off down the stairs, the sound of Kate screeching cheese as loudly as possible, following her exit.

"CHEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSEEEEEEEEEE."

There was a beat, and they all avoided looking into each other's eyes, knowing that if they started giggling now they wouldn't be able to stop, and they had Transfiguration first thing. McGonagall wouldn't approve, and had no qualms about deducting points from her own house for any minor event.

"Good God woman, why promote cheese when you could become a banshee," muttered Emma, emerging from the bathroom. She shook her head, completely bewildered about why they were talking about cheese.

It set them all off. Emma hardly had the right to complain about loudness. The girl was a walking high-pitched squeal. Her and Colin made a terrifying duo, and oh boy, that had been a painful encounter. Noise pollution at its worse. They yelled at each other at a volume that couldn't be natural they were so caught up in excitement about flying back in first year.

Emma rolled her eyes, and grabbed her book bag off her bed (dutifully unmade to satisfy the House Elves satisfaction, but mainly her laziness), swung it over her shoulder, regarded them all for a moment, and shook her head again in incomprehension. "I'm surrounded by crazy people," she wailed.

Ginny recovered admirably for her giggling fit, took a deep breath and fought off impeding giggles. She actually wanted to eat breakfast instead of sitting there cackling and looking like she actually was possessed this year. She grabbed her bag, and left with Emma, in twenty minutes or so the other two girls would bring up the rear.

"You hair looks great," said Emma. "You should wear it up more often. How come you don't?"

"Thanks," said Ginny, unable to hide her smile at the compliment. Her hair swung nicely, swishing off her neck. Her neck felt cool, and despite the word cheese being fattening, it almost felt like she lost ten pounds by removing the barcode. "Just hassle in the morning, one bathroom between five doesn't make a good beauty routine.

"We should rob the third years, there's only the three of them," mused Emma. If Ginny tried to sum up Emma in one word, it would squeaky. It should have been irritating but she just became immune to it and basked in Emma's loud hyperness. When everything became tense and dark last year, she was a breath of fresh air.

"Maybe," Ginny hedged. From what she heard from Ron and Hermione, Lavender and Padma were probably worse than the five of them put together. Inevitably it would get worse. Ginny didn't bother with cosmetics or creams. Six older brothers. She was used to limited bathroom time, and knew what mockery she'd have to endure. There was plenty of time for that stuff later. Why she'd want to wear it? Harry wouldn't notice her anyway. Just a waste of effort. She didn't care what anyone else though.

As was to be expected neither Jake or Colin commented on her hairstyle, although Jake did shoot her a few sidelong looks, aware that she looked different somehow but not bothered to figure out what or how or why. It wasn't an ambition of his to become a professional hairdresser, and thus not a concern.

Each to their own ambitions, and apparently that involved a methodical search for the invisible creatures they saw. Jake actually checked a book on the subject out of the library, his dark eyes browsing through it, and perhaps most terrifyingly, they were completely calm and sane now. His façade was back up again. Always cool and collected.

Ginny joined Jake. She peered over his shoulder at the book. He jokingly mentioned that the Sorting Hat flipped a coin to figure out whether to put him in Slytherin or Gryffindor once. No doubt ambition burned deep in his stomach. She'd make sure he didn't fall into the same trap as Tom Riddle, Snape and herself.

Save one life from the same reoccuring mistake.


	5. Knowledge

_If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them – Isaac Asimov._

**Chapter 4: Knowledge**

"Another great towering stack down, an entire library left," said Ginny in faux cheerfulness. She flopped back into her seat and pouted at the books.

The library was practically empty. Most people rather faced the cold Hogwarts grounds or stuffy Common Rooms, than enter the library; it was quiet. Autumn touched the Forbidden Forest, and the colourful leaves fluttered from trees down to the dewy grass. Summer's heat vanished into cold breezes and short afternoons. However, it was an unusually warm, sunny Friday right in the middle of a rainy, late September. It didn't take a genius to figure out where everyone was; either hanging by the lake or strolling around the grounds. The Common Rooms would be even quieter than the library, Ginny suspected.

"That's the spirit," Jake remarked. His legs were propped up on the table between them, book in his lap, and he didn't pause in perusing it, eyes rapidly flitting back and forth.

In defiance to everyone else, Ginny and Jake haunted the library with their every waking moment. Even on days like these and as September sped to an end, they weren't much closer in discovering their mysterious creature. The first month passed quickly; everyone settled into routines and memorised timetables. It was almost like they never left Hogwarts at all, except for the Dementors, who upset the balance. They lurked at the edge of the grounds, casting despair and misery, and they'd be more prevalent on a day like this.

"Yay! Go team Seeing-Things-That-Aren't-There!" Ginny mocked, putting on her best upbeat attitude. She gave Jake a scornful glare. Still, he concentrated on his book, skimming it with a determined efficiency. They got through books quicker now than at the beginning. An hour was more productive, having learnt how to locate important information as though Colin got there first and highlighted it.

"Do you think that?" Jake's voice was subdued, and Ginny snuck a glance at him. Jake's face was carefully unreadable, but that illusion was strained at the edges. His eyes were tired and bloodshot.

Ginny shook her head. "No, of course not."

Jake was silent. He closed the book with a curt snap and dropped it down on the table.

"It was there. It was real. Snape was shifty when I asked him about it. Acknowledged their existence."

Jake waved his hands in the air. "It just...doesn't make sense. And if it doesn't make sense how can it be real?"

"We're not going out of our minds," said Ginny firmly. "It _will_ make sense. Most things eventually do. We'll figure it out.

Jake nodded. Further silence. Jake broke it this time. He picked up the discarded book again, and a smirk quirked up his lips. "This is about sea creatures."

"Really?" asked Ginny and grabbed it out of his hands. It had been her turn to go through the stacks looking for potentially useful books. Obviously her search parameters weren't quite good enough. "The title so didn't imply that. This library needs a better system."

Ginny and Jake needed a new system. This method wasn't working very well. They had narrowed down their list of possible creatures, but still had to manually search through the books. If they had a name for the creature, it could be found within an hour. It was just an issue of grabbing a directory, looking it up, and finding a list of books to read. But they didn't, and couldn't.

"There's a system?"

"Hah. Hah."

"Seriously. Wizards should invest in computers, and get away from the ancient card catalogue 'system'. It's so much more convenient," said Jake. He stretched his arms up into the air, fingers interlaced and let out a heavy sigh. He probably spent more time this month in the library than all of last year, his whole life really.

"Sure, when we figure out how to get magic and electricity to coexist," Ginny quipped, and wandered away with several books before Jake could correct her pronunciation of 'electricity', because she almost certainly said it wrong. She didn't get the Muggle world, and usually it didn't bother her but there was something infuriating about Jake being completely at ease with both Muggles and Magic. He had the best of both worlds. It wasn't fair.

Ginny drifted around the library, dropping back the books from where she took them. Jake gathered the rest, and she assumed he'd use this as a chance to take a break and stretch his legs. Ginny certainly would. After sitting in class all day, there was something despairing about doing the same thing during lunch time. She needed a break from study and books. She still had time to pop outside and stroll quickly around the lake...but she wouldn't.

Ginny slotted the sea creatures book back into its spot beside the violent Care of Magical Creatures text book. Her finger brushed off its spine, and it jerked. Ginny flinched away from it. She wouldn't take that class because of the text book alone. She wasn't going near that thing, not after the last animated book she had. Jake had gone through it, without comment and declared it useless and neither of them said a word about it. She didn't confront his demons; it was only fair he repay that, and leave her alone.

Ginny pushed the book harder, frowning at the tight squeeze. There was a good inch of space earlier. She ran her finger along the spines of the books (avoiding the Care of Magical Creatures one), and found out which one didn't belong. She pulled it out, and the book sighed, tension relieved. Ginny eyed the book, but it showed no signs of jumping alive. She flipped through it. Muggle Studies. It was blatantly out of place. Ginny shrugged, and found the reference number, intending to return it to the right section.

She thumbed through the book, trusting her familiarity with the library and other senses to guide her. She would have to decide in a few months which subjects to choose, and with bland disinterest browsed this book. Percy did Muggle Studies, and seemed to enjoy it, and Dad was stark raving mad about Muggles. It might not be a bad subject to do. It didn't sound as wish-washy as Divination or dangerous as Care of Magical Creatures. A phrase jumped out at her from the book. Ginny halted and read the short paragraph.

_Barcoding is a means for Muggles to label their merchandise…_

The sentence stuck in Ginny's head, rattled around and shook chains, repeating ad infinitum. Its connations were unimaginable. Property…she was labelled as property, something to be _owned_ by someone else. The concept was utterly foreign. She knew _way_ back when, in some medieval age, she'd have belonged to someone, but this was the modern world. She wasn't property, wasn't some kind of slave, subhuman, someone whose life didn't belong to them.

But maybe she had been. _X-5 486 reporting for duty. _People had names, and realistically so should she, but that was a number. She wasn't born a person. Just a thing. No wonder Tom Riddle used her so easily. It was her function as a piece of property.

Ginny's mouth was dry at the revelation but somewhere in the back of her mind it all made sense. It was perfectly normal and natural. The sky was blue, and she was X-5 486, nothing but what they wanted her to be.

Ginny's world ripped apart. It was like a fade. The library spun away…the bookshelves and tables dimmed, and were replaced by an entirely different room. All that there was left was her, and it, and the word.

"_You mean nothing. There is no you. You are no one. Nothing exists but the mission. Your function in life is only to fulfil the mission, to obey orders"_

_She wanted to run, turn away, but she was frozen into position. She couldn't look down. There was nothing to see anyway. There was no her. Not anymore._

_Slides flashed on a screen. Words black against white, grey appearing out of the corner of her eyes, but she couldn't look away. Not her function. She could only stand rigid as the seconds passed like minutes, words snapped across her vision with calculated precision._

_**The objective is all that matters.  
**__Click.  
__**There is nothing but the mission.  
**__Click.  
__**Manticore is everything.  
**__Click._

_There were more slides. After a dozen she stopped counting, just absorbed the messages they displayed. Countless of slides and an eternity later, it stopped. Head buzzing with slogans. She believed._

_**You  
**_**_Are  
__Nothing._**

_**Manticore  
**_**_Is  
__Everything._**

Ginny blinked, and the illusion faded, with too much evidence and proof that it had existed. Her mind slipped into a pattern of thoughts that weren't her own. They was theirs. Their words, and their mottoes, and they formed her, made her into what they wanted.

Her limbs shook against her will. The library spun, threatening to disappear into something else again, and Ginny staggered over to a table only two feet away, and with weakened strength she collapsed onto a chair. The surface of the desktop was cold. Ginny didn't know if it was her imagination or not. She placed her hands on the desktop, flattening them out in a manner than was more instinct than conscious desire. She curled her hands up into fists, still shaking, and barely in control of her breathing, an automatic function, but she had no control. It was Manticore's.

Ginny Wealsey was a lot of things, but she adamantly refused to think of herself as property, like a piece of furniture to be owned and abused. Almost a decade of that life. She couldn't go back to it. She was Ginny for too long, this was who she was now, and she felt a deep sense of pity for 486. It probably never knew kindness or love, two things that existed since the beginning of Ginny's memory.

_Going, going…gone._

"_Ginny!" He rested his hand on her cheek, forcing her to turn and face him. She didn't resist the movement, and he gently turned her face. His eyes gazed into hers. She saw a reflection of herself in his pupils; a band of glittering blue surrounded her image._

"_Are you okay?" Each word was spoken slowly and punctuated with a long pause._

_She shook her head. The knowledge was overwhelming – and horrible. A yawning black chasm of fear opened her up inside. She felt herself plummeting down, down into the depths of it, into a void. Her mouth opened and her ears rang with the sound of her terror._

_Suddenly there was the sound of feet rushing in the hallway, rushing toward her and that man, growing louder and louder. Voices. Strong arms wrapped around her, pulled her close. She tensed but sank into it, releasing the terror and lounging in the comfort._

"_What did you do to her?" snarled the arms owner in an accusing voice. She flinched, and buried her head into his chest, catching only a glimpse of long red hair._

_She didn't hear the response. The conversation was muffled as if she had cotton in her ears, but gradually sounds sharpened. So did the pain._

"_Are you alright, Ginny?"_

"Are you alright, Ginny?"

There was an overlap between the two voices as reality faded in over memory. Hermione's voice mingled with Bill's; it took a long moment for Ginny to sort things out in her mind. She rubbed her eyes, trying to pretending it was just hundreds of thousands of small printed words that made them sting.

"Yeah, fine," Ginny replied slowly and mangled up an unconvincing smile for the older girl. Ginny pulled her hands away from her eyes and tried to focus on this conversation. She didn't feel like it, but it was better than dwelling on memories. They seemed to sap so much out of her. This was safer. "Why?"

"I thought you looked a bit…" Hermione trailed off, and despite her large vocabulary, she couldn't decide on a word than wasn't rude or cruel. An absent hand gesture filled in the blanks.

"Just thinking," Ginny reassured her. Technically it wasn't a lie, but it was quite the whole truth either. Hermione didn't need to know about Ginny's sob story. Ginny hadn't even told her own friends let alone her brother's friends.

"Right," Hermione drawled, brown eyes full of disbelief.

"Shouldn't you be at class?" Ginny asked. Her tone was abrupt, but Hermione didn't react, or shy away from the accusation. It was a given fact that Hermione was doing too many subjects, and that everything she did revolved around them, and not chatting with her friend's little sister.

"Implying that you're skipping?" said Hermione, disapproval dark in her voice, and if possible, darker in her eyes. "What do you have next anyway?"

"No, and DADA. Wouldn't skip that," said Ginny. She mustered up enough passion and energy to give Hermione a look. She already had Percy for lectures, not to mention parents, didn't need Hermione getting in on the act too.

Hermione nodded knowingly. "Professor Lupin is a great teacher, isn't he?"

"Odd though, like there's something off about him," Ginny remarked. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Ginny wanted to retract them. Too late. She made a face. She must be tireder than she reckoned, mouthing off her thoughts and suspicions.

She didn't want to spread slander around about Lupin. He seemed genuinely like a nice man, but there was an air around him, and from their first encounter she sensed it.

"You noticed?" said Hermione, eyes lightening up with relief. She leant forward slightly, feeling as if she found a co-conspirer to share her doubts with it. "I thought I was just being paranoid. We haven't had the best luck with DADA teachers, you know."

"So, what do you think?" Ginny asked.

Hermione bit her lip thoughtfully. "I don't know, no theory really. I want to look, just lack of time." She gave a half-shrug and gave her bag a nudge. It didn't budge it was so overly crammed with books. Her face was earnest, displaying her best of intentions. Hermione always had, but that was what paved the road to hell. She would learn sometime that it was best not to tickle a sleeping dragon.

Perhaps Ginny would too, or maybe she'd continue to be a hypocrite. At least she understood that it was stupid, and felt the potential burn every moment she approached her dragon. Like now. Her head pounded. Ginny pressed a hand to her forehead, heat radiating from head. She felt like she was about to throw up.

Hermione pursed her lips, but refrained from commented. Instead, she tactfully looked around for another topic. Her eyes fell on the Muggle Studies book. She raised an eyebrow and picked it up from where it lay half-opened and abandoned. "What exactly is this about?

"Just dropping it back, saw something interesting," Ginny dismissed. She had no intention of discussing this with Hermione. Sure, she was a Muggle Born, and more than wiling to help, but this was a private issue.

"Barcodes?" said Hermione, unwilling or perhaps unable, to take the hint that Ginny didn't want to talk about this. "What about 'em?"

"Just stood out," said Ginny with a shrug. She didn't know when, but somewhere along the line she learned the secrets of lying and retained at least some of them. It was all she seemed to do with Hermione. Ginny could only think of a dozen she said that weren't lies. Shame ignited in her stomach. Ginny sighed. It was for Hermione's good, she didn't need to know about any of this. The words rang hollow. Ginny just wanted to do or say something decent, for the once, to the other girl. She didn't deserve this.

"Really? They've always been there. I was actually surprised to see none in Diagon Alley back in first year," Hermione admitted with a sheepish smile. A thoughtful look crossed her face. "I really don't see why not. I would be so much more convenient, for stock controlling and reducing theft and other stuff.

Ginny grinned and shook her head, pushing away her regrets and guilt. "You should talk to Jake," was all she said.

Her forehead creased into a frown. Ginny could practically see her brain tick as it went into overdrive and Hermione tried to solve the problem. "If a wand could act as a laser," mumbled Hermione to herself.

_Metal chair, straps dug into her arms, nearly cutting off her blood circulation. They was unnecessary. She hadn't fought. Not out of meekness, but inability. Her chest still burnt at the slightest movement. It itched, her hands twitched, wishing to rub the itch away. _

_Concentrating on her own petty discomforts to the exclusion of the immediate, terrifying future, kept her panic under control...it kept her going. It was imperative not the focus on anything but the immediate present, not the future or the past, just the itch. _

_There was no place for speculation or regrets, and she wouldn't have them for very long anymore, so it hardly mattered. With that thought, reality surged forward, and she saw the long cylinder device pointed in front of her face. She swallowed. There was a lump in her throat. She knew of only two outcomes and both served the same purpose. Death or Eradication of Self. She remembered very little now. Nothing of what she did to end up here._

_Children, shadows on the wall, low voices, and calm faces, moments that would all fade soon. She stared unseeingly ahead, trying to recall something about the Good Place, but peace had been annilated from her world now. Only fear and bad memories to hid in; training missions gone wrong, cold surgery tables, Nomalies. All indications that she was Defective and Needed to Be Fixed._

_And she was back in the present. The operator switched the machine on, just a simple press of a button. A red laser burned into her eye, setting fire to her mind and remaining memories with a force that left her gasping for breath from a ruptured lung. Her lungs pressed against her ribcage, diaphragm squeezing painfully against them. It was impossible to breath. The fire spread down her neck and spine; her body spasmed against the abuse. Every nerve raw, and burning. On fire. She writhed against the restraints trying to escape the pain, but the laser bored into her eye, endless and merciless._

_No escape. Nothing, but the present, and ensuring she returned to operational form. It didn't even matter why she was here or why her chest itched. Minor concerns. All unimportant. Only Manticore mattered._

_X-5 486 reporting for duty._


	6. Manticore

_**Author Notes: **Sorry about the weird updates. I blame the clocks changing. It's completely thrown me out of whack. I'll try to be better with the next update. I'm going to repost this chapter again with it, because I think it still needs some fine tuning._

**Previously:**

_No escape. Nothing, but the present, and ensuring she returned to operational form. It didn't even matter why she was here or why her chest itched. Minor concerns. All unimportant. Only Manticore mattered._

_X-5 486 reporting for duty._

* * *

"Ginny?" a voice rang out. A hand waved in front of her face. "Anyone home? The lights are on…"

Jake. It had to be. No one else could be concerned _and_ obnoxious. He peered at her with unreadable, colourless eyes. His hand was tight around her arm, as though the physical grip allowed him go where he couldn't follow – her memories and fears

"Yeah?" asked Ginny, her voice hoarse and pained. She flinched at the brittle rasp, and drop her head into her hands. Ginny's eyes burned, and she closed them. The roof of her mouth was dry and sandpapery, or perhaps that was her tongue, but when she tried to moistened her mouth, she unable.

"Lunch was over about two minutes ago," said Jake.

His hand remained, and Ginny didn't brush him away – the contact was reassuring, even as her heart hammered in her chest, and it hurt to breath. Ginny clenched her hands into fists, and blinked her eyes open, painfully reinserting herself in the present – couldn't have a panic attack and allow claustrophobia overwhelm her. It wasn't the time for it. Or the place.

Hermione looked freaked. Her hands were in her lap, but she wrung them quietly, eying Ginny, but was unable to meet her eye. Ginny sighed and stifled an urge to yell an obscenity and scream until she had a reason to be hoarse. Instead she flashed a smile, and compartmenalised, no doubt, like 486 had been taught.

"Right. We should be head off," said Ginny. She grabbed the book and rose to her feet. She paused briefly, waiting for a bout of dizziness to pass. She swallowed the bile that threatened to rise up her throat, and forced a pleasant goodbye out of her mouth. "See you around, Hermione."

Ginny and Jake strolled to class, unhurried, and that was good, because Ginny thought she might pass out. At any rate, they were already late; the extra two minutes added by not rushing hardly made a difference. Lupin wasn't as temperamental as Snape about lateness.

The Defence Against the Dark Arts class was in the same room as last year, but the classroom was redecorated. The sickly, lilac walls holding several portraits of Lockhart, were stripped, a bland green replacing them. The only remaining evidence left of the man was Alice's lingering crush.

Professor Lupin stood at the door. His eyes flickered to his watch pointedly. "You were so close to being on time it's just a shame that you didn't make it," he greeted, voice mild, and eyes faintly amused.

"Sorry, Professor," said Jake, attitude contrary, but smile sarcastic. He inclined his head, accepting the rebuttal. He didn't make it a habit to show up late to class, but with more frequent stops in the library, it was quickly becoming routine.

Ginny mumbled something passable, and let Lupin interpret it as he wished. His eyes lingered on her, and she stared down at ground, faint blush on her cheeks. They spoke about her in the staff room; Lupin knew exactly what occurred last year. What else could he see in her that intrigued him? Just Ginny, the youngest of the Wealseys and the only girl. No reason to stare. Or maybe she wasn't as good at bottling things away as she reckoned.

"Sit down," said Professor Lupin. He jerked his hand at the spare seats beside Colin. His eyes warned them to by quick and quiet about it. Behind the mild mannered instruction, was a steel of iron. Ginny obeyed, deciding that Lupin wasn't a man to goad, and that pushing too far would be dangerous.

Colin spared a glance from his text book, to give her a brief smile, determined the catch up on all the stuff he was convinced that he missed. She explained that he didn't miss anything important, but he wouldn't be persuaded that nothing ever happened, excluding Ginny and Jake's increasingly competitive games of dot-to-dot and tic-tac-toe.

She zipped opened her bag, wincing at the noise in the otherwise silent classroom, and took out the necessary equipment. The soft noises echoed around the classroom. Lupin didn't wait for her and Jake to settle, just started classes.

"Good afternoon. Put away your wands we are doing theory today."

Shuffles and groaning filled the expectant silence; betrayed expressions shone up at Lupin, but despite the whispers, everyone obeyed, and the class fell hushed again. Ginny dipped her quill into ink and placed the tip of it on her parchment, poised to write, a small smirk on her lips at Colin's trusty Biro. He'd be brainwashing into using a quill yet.

Lupin turned around and wrote a word on the board.

"This isn't how I play hangman," Jake mumbled, head resting in his fist as he eyed the forming word.

"Man?" muttered Emma, although her version of a mutter was quite a bit louder than the rest of the world's and it travelled across the classroom. "What about woman? That's just sexist."

"Some words have more than one syllable, genius," shot Kate.

"Manicure?" Alice suggested. Her eyes lit up as she looked thoughtfully at her nails. Despite a gruelling Herbology class yesterday with vicious plants, Alice's French tips were immaculate.

"Mantic?" suggested Colin, making a stab at the word. Thoughts buzzed through his head, on the verge on guessing the word. He ignored the riduculous suggestions voiced by his classmates, forehead furrowed in concentration, and eyes glazed, struggling to recall a highlighted sentence somewhere.

"Manticore!"

"Excellent, Mr. Creevy," Lupin congratulated and the remaining letters appeared quickly on the board. No more drama now. "Who, aside from Colin, can tell me what a Manticore is?"

Ginny frozen, and if the word sounded foreign from Colin's lips, it sounded unnatural from Lupin's. Sinister. Ginny stared wide eyed at the printed world. It burnt into her mind, equally effective as those slides.

_Manticore is everything._

Ginny's chest was tight, and there was a swollen lump in the back of her throat. She changed her mind. She didn't want to know where she was coming from, her past and former life, if she had to go back there. Be 486. Ginny shook her head. She wouldn't. Ever.

"It's like some kind of dangerous beast, but Professor, isn't that what Care of Magical Creatures is about?" said Kate with a vague hand gesture, tone less confident than it was about cheese.

"It's a dangerous creature similar to the chimera," piped up Jake, a surprising source of information. His voice was taut, and eyes narrowed. His crossed his arms, a defensive gesture, expecting the amusement about his contribution. He never volunteered information, supplied it if asked, but he never put himself out.

Ginny obliged. She had no idea what association this Manticore had with the one she knew, but she couldn't take the risk, of them being the same. Anyone here could be sent to drag her back. She couldn't let them know who she was.

"He's been holding out on us," Ginny hissed to Colin, who seat between them. "Poke him."

"Good. Five points to Gryffindor," Lupin acknowledged.

"It originates from Greece. Head of a man, body of a lion, and a tail of a scorpion," Lupin elaborated.

Ginny's quill lay neatly in front of her, the perfectness of it scarred by the crack in the middle. She had snapped it in half, and the pieces wouldn't go back together quite so perfectly. She shrugged, and grabbed another quill to take down Lupin's explanation. She didn't remember breaking the quill at all.

Lupin held up a violent engraving for them to see. In the picture, a man got savaged. It was one of those pictures, that would never make it into a text book.

"Eww," said Alice quietly, but she couldn't tear her eyes away.

Neither could Ginny. The beast was grotesque and demented, and it symbolised her Manticore perfectly. A twisted coincidence? Or was the organisation (what was Manticore anyway? Training camp? Boarding lodge? Slave trader? Company?) inspired from the beast? That meant a wizard _had_ to be involved. It meant her safety and position was tenuous. Ginny rubbed her tingling neck, which still felt as though it bore a barcode.

Lupin continued speaking, and Ginny dutifully wrote down notes.

"It's reputed to croon as it kills it prey-"

_Running low through the forest. Movements silent and expertly choreographed. Blood thumping through veins. Feet pounding across the uneven terrain. Low branches and careless bullets. Catching up. Motive not as motivating as theirs. _

_Failure is not a option. Success imperative. Had him. Abandoned gun. Use all available resources to complete the mission. Unlatch safety. Back-up for the unlikely carelessness of the unit. Expect the unexpected. Watching. Knife gone. Battle lost. _

_Hand signal. Unforeseen problem. Unit backing away. Brief glimpse. Outside heart. Dagger dripping blood._

"_He's a Nomile."_

_Another signal. Advancement. Shattered silence. Echoing yells and screams. Bruises and blood. Revenge. Objective completed. Mission successful. _

_Glinting knife. Tantalizing. Want. Take. Hide. In a boot. Contraband. Outside mission parameters. Cold steel. Missing apparatus. Unnoticed. Bad soldier._

Ginny shuddered, a jerk reflex making her foot hit the leg of the table. Coldness poured over Ginny, her bones freezing into ice, and she stared in horror at her twitching hands. They were clean, nails painted a bright red and gold in support of Gryffindor. Blood trickled through the lines in her palms. Contaminated. Ginny blinked, and the blood vanished. It must have been a trick of the light...She curled her hands into fists, and remained motionless, fighting to urge to gag or react. She manged to compose herself once already today. She could do it again. Ginny drew in a shaky breath, and picked up her abandoned quill, focusing on the class, because that made it easier to pretend that scene never happened.

"So, this says what?" asked Lupin.

After a long beat of silence, Kevin piped up with the answer everyone was too reluctant to say. "They're dangerous."

"Exactly," said Lupin. "Most wizards that encounter a Manticores die as displayed by the picture. Why?"

"'Cause it's an evil gigantic monster?" Emma suggested.

"Partly." Lupin agreed with a sardonic smirk on his face. "But also? The point you're missing."

"It's an _exceptionally_ dangerous creature?" Colin volunteered half-heartedly when Lupin's eyes rested on him, clearing having no idea, but unable to stand the quiet.

"Not quite."

"Well spells don't work very well against them, so magic isn't effective and wizards rely on magic," Mary said slowly. She dragged out her words, her theory only forming as she spoke.

"You're getting closer."

"Because wizards are used to controlling magical creatures, with laws and stuff. Wasn't there a case where one got off cause everyone was scared of it?" said Kate tentatively, tapping her quill against the table.

Lupin sighed. "Further away again."

"Nothing to fear but fear itself; it's the fear of the creature that stops us being able to stand against it," said Jake. He stared, or seemingly through, the blackboard as he spoke.

"Go on."

"You panic and are all like 'oh crap it's a Manticore'. Not thinking straight, like a vicious circle from history. You don' t think you can so you don't bother…but there are always ways. Everything has a weakness."

"Yes, and not just Manticores. Depending on your future career you will come up against things bigger and better than yourself. It's not what they do but what _you_ do. How you react. It's not the size of a dog in a fight but the size of the fight in a dog. You want to win, and if you keep a cool head there are ways to win. Using the Manticore as an example, what would you do?"

"Get a machine gun and go GI-Joe," said Kevin, hazel eyes lighting up.

Ginny couldn't tell whether he was joking or being serious. Either way, it was an unfortunate reminder to the hunt.

"'Because bullets are _so _much more effective than spells," said Jake scathingly.

"Why not?"

"The Manticore's skin is resistant to spells. It probably also has a Kevlar defence which bullets can't penetrate," replied Jake, with a dismissive shrug. Bored now, of the topic.

"But the Manticore is only an example," argued Kate, a thoughtful frown settling on her face. "But like in wars and stuff, instead of just throwing hexes around which have actual defences, why didn't anyone pull out a gun like Kevin said and just start shooting like crazy? Wizards don't wear Kevlar. It would have to be so much more effective. No defence."

Ginny could picture it. A dozen wizards line up, and being shot down it turn, blissfully unaware that the thing pointed at them was a weapon. "Slaughter," she burst out. Her words echoed in the room, and Ginny ducked her head, from their querying eyes.

"Yeah. That's the general definition of war," said Kate. She gave Ginny a weird look before turning to Lupin, waiting for his response. "In You-Know-Who's reign, why didn't they use Muggle weapons? Even just for the sake of irony."

Lupin leaned back against his desk, half sitting on it, and regarded the class. His expression was neutral, and when he spoke, the words were carefully chosen.

"Change is a difficult thing, especially when there is a setting tradition in duelling. It becomes habit to follow it, and that's not easy to break. And, even if someone did, he probably wouldn't be able to use a gun. There was no time to train wizards – even Aurors had drastically short training periods then. People died too quickly."

"Guns are expensive," Colin added in the terse silence. "Too much money was being spent anyway. Wasn't practical. Might not have worked anyway."

"They could have tested it," argued Kevin, siding with Kate in the Muggle violence issue or, probably as they thought, thinking outside the box.

"It's not an ethical experiment and the results aren't valid if it causes harm," Colin said. It wasn't direct quote from their first year potions book but it was close. Colin might have been the only one who memorised it, but they all know it – Snape mentioned it on several occasions.

"That doesn't matter. Not then. The end justified the means," said Ginny quietly, knowing too well herself how far people would go to achieve an objective. Murder. She wasn't an innocent bystander in _that _event.

"Well if there's a next time, I'm going to learn how to use a gun and then shoot everyone silly," Kevin maintained, with an empathetic nod. "I don't know any great or fancy spells, but I've seen movies and stuff. Guns aren't that hard to use. Just pull a trigger and wham."

"Wave a wand and say abracadabra," said Jake scathingly, throwing Kevin a vicious look. "It's _not_ like the movies."

"How would _you_ know?"

"Dude, I _live_ in America. I've actually seen a gun in real life. They are as real in movies are vampires are. You do that stuff in the battlefield, and that's your death warrant."

"Why are you in Hogwarts then?" Colin asked Jake, as though it was the time and place for this conversation. He tilted his head in confusion and genuine interest. The question was accusing – go back home Yank thing.

"I really wanted to drink tea and eat scones," Jake quipped. "Nah, they were all full up a few years back - major baby boom I think, and Hogwarts opened its doors up to several American students with the intention of an exchange program. Didn't work, but my sister was one of those people, and the family connection was enough to despite borderlines."

Lupin cleared his throat. "As fascinating as your autobiography is Jake, we're slightly off topic, but you're wrong there, I believe a dozen British Wizards are over there, we didn't have the resources to accommodate them."

Incredibly off topic actually. Ginny shook her head and rolled her eyes. This sort of behaviour was the norm in Charms, but usually they managed to stay on topic in Defence Against the Dark Arts.

"Obviously you need to think on this subject," said Lupin, dragging the class back to attention, although most people looked like they wanted to join an exchange program now. "I'm assigning an essay for next week. Twelve inches. Can anyone guess the topic?"

"Why an exchange program is a good idea?"

"An overview of Manticores and their lifestyles?"

"Manticore verses Dragon."

Lupin raised his hands, halting the random suggestions. "If only you were so lucky. I reiterate. Using a Manticore as an example, what would you do? You may think outside of that box, but try to relate it back." He checked his watch. "We have twenty minutes left, you may start now. Put your hand up if you have any questions.

Ginny eyed Lupin, unwilling to pick up her quill and write for fear of seeing shuddering letters on the page. She couldn't control her hands. She was barely able to keep the shakes from being noticeable. Lupin met her gaze evenly, and eventually the bell rang signalling the end of class. Hermione was right – there definitely was something strange about the man.

Ginny shoved her possessions carelessly into her bag carelessly, indifferent to her parchment becoming crumbled. As long as it made it into the bag she was happy. The trembles crept up her arms. Ginny swung her bag over her shoulders with more effort and concern than should have been necessary, and crossed her arms tightly trying to immobilise them from moving.

"I'll never get twelve inches on that," Colin complained.

"Shouldn't be any worse than anything else," replied Jake.

Ginny risked a look at him. For someone who avoided talking about his family, he seemed remarkably happy-go-lucky about broadcasting it to the class. She glanced away. She didn't have the energy to deal with his problems.

"I could write two inches and just repeat myself several times," continued Colin in his own little world now. Ginny and Jake could take a left turn and he'd keep walking back to Gryffindor jabbering away to himself.

"You okay?" Ginny asked.

"Peachy."

"'Cause you know, it'd be a shame to be pear-ish."

Jake offered her a thin, wry smile. "A new slant on everything going pear shaped, huh?"

"Banana shaped is just dodgy."

"I hate fruit," Colin remarked.

"You drink pumpkin juice," pointed out Jake, in a default I'm-talking-to-an idiot-tone-and-I must-point-out-the-obvious voice.

"That's a vegetable," Colin dismissed.

"Fruit."

"Veg."

"C'mon you two," Ginny whined, knowing all too well that they would comfortably settle into this argument and go on forever, long after the humble pumpkin was extinct. "It's the tomato anyway, not a pumpkin."

At the same time, they both muttered the names of their respective groups but let it drop. Vicious eyeballing said that this argument wasn't over. No matter what Ginny might think sometimes, Colin and Jake were definitely two preteen boys. No doubt about it.

She cast her eyes down at their feet as they climbed the staircase, idly noting that they moved in unison. Despite their varied heights, their footfalls fell the same, and continued to even after they reached the next floor.

Their feet blurred out of focus and were replaced by small muddy boots.

_Left. Right._

_Left. Right._

_It focused on Its feet, ensuring that they remained in perfect harmony with the others. There was no other sound but rhythmic thumping as all their feet hit the ground together. Two rows of ten each, and it was all 486 could do to keep placing one foot in front of another. A different bland corridor passed, and they seemed miles away from the barracks. Its boots never felt so heavy, but It kept Its back straight and marched with the others._

_Left. Right._

_Left. Right._

Five minutes, a dozen corridors and a few floors away, they descended upon Gryffindor Tower to drop their bags off, no point in lugging them around. Ginny may be short enough to be mistaken for a first year but she didn't want to act like one. Wasn't like a hundred or so steps would kill her no matter how much her arms felt like jelly.

"My pictures should be done by now," Colin announced, glancing idly at his watch in a manner that suggested he didn't consciously check the time, just a habit.

"By all means run off, abandon us," said Jake grandly, tone only slightly patronising and he smirked as Coin scampered off. It was strained around the edges, clearly still in a bit of a mood, but not threatening to linger there all day.

It didn't bother Ginny. If he were cheerful she might just hex him, but he clearly wasn't, and they sat there sprawled in the comfortable old armchairs, silent. Ginny bit her lip, chewing thoughtfully. The shaking wasn't going away. Wasn't getting worse, not now, but it would spread, and she didn't know what to do. She could pretend it was an aftershock from the memories; they were a full-blown problem which she didn't know how to solve.

She didn't eat anything strange, get hid by a spell or touch anything unusual today. There was no reason for the shaking. They were just random, and a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach warned that they'd reappear sporadically, possibly to a worse degree. It wasn't magic. She knew that much, and after ruling all that out it basically left 486 and all Its issues from that lifetime.

Like the essay about Manticore wasn't enough to worry about. She also had a real organisation by the same name to stress about. She wondered if it was time to contact Bill. He was always supportive of her former life, knew her a bit actually, but she didn't want to worry him. He'd think it was a delayed effect from the tomb, and then more than just Madam Pomfrey would be hovering.

Ginny clutched her arms tighter around herself.

She'd just have to ride it out.


	7. Sneaking

_I am a sneak and a thief. Nanak describes the state of the lowly. I live as a wild hunter. O Creator! - Sri Guru Granth Sahib _

**CHAPTER 5: Sneaking**

Ginny took one step into the Great Hall, and immediately spun on heel and left. She rolled her eyes and leaned against the wall, waiting for the second year girls to arrive. She _wasn't_ listening to another round of fruit versus vegetable, which Colin and Jake would almost definitely bring up.

The Great Hall was decorated with hundreds and hundreds of candle-filled pumpkins, and Ginny didn't have the patience or energy to listen to an inane argument, reckoning it would be less painful to endure Alice wailing about the cloud of fluttering bats.

It was quite amusing really. There was Emma, clapping her hands and cooing over the bats, and Alice clutching her hair and eying them with apprehension. Their voices overlapped, Emma babbling about the decorations and Alice muttering darkly.

"Rats with wings." A deep shudder of revulsion grasped Alice. Her suspicious glare never wavered. Her shoulders were hunched and tense in expectation of the bats' attack.

"Pigeons? Where?" Kate wondered, and tilted her head in search of the birds. She noticed the bats and rolled her eyes. "Bats," she explained with an expansive hand gesture.

Ginny hid a grin and graciously turned the conversation away from bats. "Where's Mary anyway?"

Alice smiled, or rather she bared her sparkly, white teeth. Her eyes lit up with glee. "Having a _private _celebration."

"Oh," Emma drawled. She rested her elbows on the table and leaned forward, decorations dismissed against the importance of gossip."Terry?

"Who else?" scoffed Kate. "The girl is obsessed with him."

"He seems nice," Ginny defended. That wasn't, strictly speaking, true. Ginny knew very little about Terry and never met him. He was in a different year and house, and she never had reason to talk to him. But Terry would be nice. _Mary_ liked him after all.

"Exactly! _Nice. _That's such a dull description. That's the best you can come up with? He's just a Ravenclaw nerd. Nothing to see there," said Alice sneered. Her button nose was aloof. She let down her guard, to shoot the Ravenclaw table a scornful look, and then resumed eying the bats again.

Mary arrived breathlessly just before the feast appeared on the golden plates. She wore a smug, little 'cat who got the canary' smile.

"Well, well, well. Where have you been, sweetheart?" Emma asked.

"I don't kiss and tell," said Mary primly. She arranged a napkin in her lap and cast a sly look out of the corner of her eyes to see the reaction of the girls.

Kate gave her a thumbs up and Alice oohed. Ginny shifted awkwardly, all to aware of the twins just across from them. This was exactly the kind of conversation she didn't want them to hear.

Emma grabbed Mary by the shoulders and shook her lightly. "You're getting a personality implant before bed tonight, 'cause you're spilling everything."

Mary laughed. "Only if you say pretty please with sugar on top."

"You won't want any sugar for a decade after this feast," said Alice. Her eyes roamed critically down the varied offerings, and she scrunched her nose up.

"You're not still on about cheese, are you?" Kate complained. She threw her eyes up to the ceiling and mumbled something indistinguishable from the buzz of chatter in the Great Hall. "Look, just pretend it's good for you and there will be no bad affects."

Alice looked Kate up and down, ugly sneer curling her lips. Her gaze rested on Kate's stomach. "Yeah, that's, uh, working for you."

Kate bristled. Her knuckles turned white around her knife and fork, both of which hung with steady precision in midair. She didn't glance down or pat her stomach, but she looked like she needed the reassurance that she hadn't gained fourteen pounds under Alice's scorn. Kate wasn't fat, or even chubby, but next to Alice she adopted an ungainly edge, and the words touched home.

"Hey, hey, hey," Emma barked loudly before Kate could retort. She waved her hand at the two girls opposite her to emphasis her point.

"C'mon, let's not do this," Mary added. She stared determined at her plate to avoid Kate's accusing stare. She played mediator instead of best friend, and although the scene didn't escalate, everything remained tense.

Ginny played with her food, refusing to be the one to break the painful silence or make eye contact. That lasted up until dessert. Her lips twitched, surveying the selection. Emma winked at Ginny, and grabbed a slice of cheesecake.

"Mmmh, oh God, this is heaven," Emma claimed. Her head was tilted back, eyes closed in ecstasy, and deep within a private moment. Only Emma would pull at stunt like this.

"This isn't a shampoo ad. Keep the 'oohs' and 'aahs' to yourself," Mary quipped.

"Try some," Emma insisted. She scooped up a large portion onto her fork and waved it in Mary's face.

"I'd explode," said Mary. She shook her head, and twisted he mouth down in a pained gesture. Her own dessert lay barely touched and melting.

"Just a bit. Go on," Emma coaxed, and waved the fork dangerously, but somehow the cheesecake clung onto it.

"Yeah," Ginny sniggered and put on her best baby voice. "Open your mouth for the choo choo train. Choo! Choo!"

Mary shot Ginny a vicious look. "Don't give her ideas."

Emma darted forward and shoved the piece of cheesecake into Mary's mouth, exploiting the brief opportunity of Mary talking. Mary had no choice but to eat it. She chewed slowly, either putting off the inevitable or savouring the apparently gorgeous dessert.

"Happy?" She asked Emma acidly.

"Yeah actually," Emma agreed, and inhaled the rest of the cheesecake under the watchful eyes of Kate and Alice, who both noticeably refrained from taking dessert. Alice was obviously on another diet, and apparently her words cut closer to Kate than Ginny understood.

"Didn't taste like cheese, huh?" Ginny whispered in Emma's ear.

"Not remotely. No cheddar there that's for sure," Emma replied.

The feast finished with entertainment provided by the Hogwarts ghosts. They popped out of the walls and tables to do a spot of formation gliding. Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost, had great success with a re-enactment of his own botched beheading.

What could have been an excellent evening was tainted with unsaid comments, and despite the argument being adverted, it still controlled the evening. Ginny remained as the other girls clambered away from the table, all dispatching in opposite directions. She waited for Colin and Jake to finish up an enthusiastic conversation with Gerard over some music band that she never heard of. Michael and Kevin looked similarly bored with the conversation, and drifted away, muttering about stupid Muggle music.

A dozen feet behind the rest of the Gryffindors; Ginny, Colin, Jake and Gerard strolled along. When they reached final corridor before the Fat Lady, they found it jammed with students.

"What's going on?" Jake asked.

"Everyone forgot the password?" suggested Colin.

No one could get in at all. Ginny glanced behind her. Still more people ambled up lazily. She bit her lip. It was just going to get more and more crammed. It was already on the verge of being full, Ginny's arm rubbed off Jake's, and the heat of his body emitted into her. She felt too warm. There were so many people here.

Next moment, Professor Dumbledore swept towards the portrait. The greatness of his power shown by how he easily got through, creating space where there was none. Ginny perched up on her tiptoes but she couldn't see what the problem was.

"Can you see anything?" she yelled at Gerard.

He was the tallest person in their group, but he shook his head. Gerard replied, but Ginny couldn't hear him over the compressed noise in the corridor. She shrugged and made a 'what?' face at him. Gerard's lips moved slowly and he spoke clearly.

"Where's Jake?"

Ginny looked around. He vanished. He had been right beside her, and then he wasn't. She hadn't noticed his disappearance at all.

"I'll go after him," she said. Ginny edged her way down the corridor, muttering 'sorry' and 'excuse me' until at last the wall of students vanished.

Jake appeared; he sat cross-legged, elbows on his knees and chin resting on his fists. He stared at the wall opposite him but glanced up when she came to stand next to him. Ginny leaned against the wall, and slid down to sit beside him.

"Didn't know you were claustrophobic," Ginny remarked.

Jake's dark eyes locked with hers. Preoccupied. An expression that was becoming very familiar now. "I'm not. Just no point standing there like a moron," Jake said.

"Yeah," said Ginny, with a disbelieving quirk of her lips. In a flash, she saw how this conversation would go. She would barely brush on the issue at hand, and he'd sweep it away with a quip. She'd retort and they'd never talk about it again.

But Jake deserved more than that.

"What's wrong, Jake?" Ginny asked.

The denial never came, nor the dismissal. "I hate metaphors," Jake said instead.

"Who doesn't?" responded Ginny. Her moment of insight was gone, and she had no idea where Jake was heading with this.

"I could have a thesis-sized metaphor to explain everything, and it would be as clear as mud."

"What's your opinion on similes?"

Jake's lips quirked, but it was ambiguous about what amused him: her comment or the final chance to back out of this? Perhaps, a bit of both.

"You know my sister, right? I had a brother too."

Ginny opened her mouth, painfully aware of the past tense, but Jake held up his hand for silence. And what could she have said anyway?

"He was the oldest, and um, a complete idiot apparently," said Jake. He licked his lips and let out a nervous chuckle. "You see the cliche on TV, you know? The redneck with the shotgun going off to hunt deer or something. But it wasn't a deer, and he wasn't as good as he thought."

Ginny closed her eyes and inhaled sharply. She knew how this story ended. A violent shiver rustled down her back. God. The picture Lupin showed them in class...that was a real person, someone who she was connected to be default. Torn apart, chewed up, utterly annihilated.

"Lupin didn't know," she said.

"He had a class to teach, a sob story wouldn't have changed anything," Jake said brusquely. He shook his head, jaw clenched. Ginny wasn't a mind reader, but he was practically screaming that he didn't want her _pity_. Anyone's pity.

She didn't give it to him. Not intentionally. It was Peeves that ended the impasse with several well chosen words and a large grin. "Nasty temper he's got, that Sirius Black."

* * *

"Did you overhear Dumbledore and Snape that night?" Jake asked. 

Ginny shook her head. She snapped the book, which she was pretending to read, closed. She couldn't concentrate. A fourth year Hufflepuff babbling confidently about her inane theory had Ginny distracted, and bordering on demented. Sirius Black did not disguise himself as a flowering shrub. Period. It was ridiculous and crazy, and one of the more logical speculations the student body had spawned.

This didn't deter Jake. He summarised the conversation quickly, and looked expectantly at Ginny. She sighed, sick of the whole thing already. It was all anyone could talk about, and although Jake chose a different variation, the topic was the same – Sirius Black, traitor and sneak.

Madam Pince let the conversation slide. She floated around the library in a sort of daze; the news very much shaking her. The affect it had on the library was startling. Conversation rose above an enforced whisper, and some even dared to bring food into the library. Books lay neglected on study tables and an entire cart of books waited to be restacked.

"Snape's hated Lupin from the beginning; it's probably old bitterness making itself known," suggested Ginny half-heartedly. Snape was a lot of things, but his version of pettiness was drastically different. This wasn't his approach. He was Head of Slytherin. He favoured subtleness, and whatever he did its effect would be far more devastating than this.

"I hate to admit it, but the man _has_ a point," said Jake. A scowl darkened his face, hating to align himself with Snape against one his favourite teachers.

"But Dumbledore is Dumbledore," said Ginny.

"_Everyone's_ fallible."

"Yeah, but he's not senile. He would _never_ appoint a traitor as a teacher. He'd have seen through whatever Lupin said to him, recognised him as an impostor, and sent him away."

"You have seen his selection of teachers, right Gin? They're a motley, varied bunch. I wouldn't put it passed him. He hired Lockhart, for crying out loud."

Ginny tapped her fingers on the side of the table and inclined her head. It was an irrefutable point. So too was the fact that Black actually managed to infiltrate the school, if not by becoming a flowering shrub, but by some other method. One which Dumbledore failed to anticipate.

"Lupin's too obvious," she said. Her tone and expression left no room for argument. If someone got by Dumbledore, it would be subtle and unexpected. Lupin wasn't that; whatever strangeness lurked around him, it wasn't in relation to that.

"Dumbledore _knew_ Black. He was a student here," said Jake He leaned forward, unholy glint in his eyes. Ginny didn't want to hear this.

"He was from a good, strong family. Bright. Talented. Charming. He had everything...and then we went crazy. Can you imagine what it must be like too him in the eye, and see nothing of what used to be there, and not just for Dumbledore, but for Black himself."

"You've looked into this," said Ginny. There was a thick lump in the back of her throat, the truth she tried to avoid, and that Jake was painting in vicious, deft strokes. "Guilty conscience? Plans of mass murder?"

"Maybe," he hedged. He adverted his eyes to the book in his lap. One which she had already looked through on their search of the creature, but forgot to remind him. It was useless, and there was no way to justify wasting time reading it twice.

"I've been thinking 'bout what you said about the creature. Probably _not_ the way you intended though," said Jake with a crooked smile. "Maybe I'm not going out of my mind, but maybe that would be better. The horse-thing, whatever it is, it's not good. It's demonic and scary, and the only person I know that can see it, Snape, isn't exactly the stuff role models are made out of. It isn't good that I can see it, it's like an omen, not that I'm gonna die but...something changed Black. What if this was it?"

"I can see it too. Kinda. Do I have the same bleak future as you?" Ginny strove for a teasing tone, but it came out flat. She couldn't offer Jake the reassurance he needed. Because by his theory, and her worst fears, she was just like Black_. Infiltrator_. Like maybe, there was a sinister intent to the way she slipped quietly into the British Wizarding World, and 486's mission. Ginny didn't mean to be doing something wrong, but she didn't know how to stop it, or even if there was something at all.

I'm sorry," said Jake. "I forgot..."

He looked at her strangely, unable to believe to Ginny would be capable to do anything Snape or Black had done or what he pictured himself doing. It shattered his theory. But she knew it just made it fit more perfectly.

Ginny assisted in killing that man, if only by watching passively, and couldn't claim not to have blood on her hands. She also used that knife for a purpose she didn't want to contemplate. That was as a kid. Ginny started out much worse than the Black, and that meant she'd go a lot lower. There was no way her soul wasn't contaminated, not after Manticore, and especially not after Riddle.

Ginny gritted her teeth and squashed the self-condemnation. She didn't know any of that, and couldn't change it, but it was never to late to change the future. She believed that. She had to, because she got away from Manticore, and defied Riddle. Ginny could save her from herself.

Colin barged into the library and flopped down beside them in a hardback, library chair. His eyes blazed and his two hands wrung invisible air as though it was a neck. He let out an unintelligible noise.

"You okay, man?" Jake asked. He raised a dispassionate eyebrow at Colin's antics, and exchanged a look with Ginny. Colin must have spent too long in the dark room, unventilated as it was, he probably inhaled strong smelling potions.

"I'm going to take a page out of Black's book and destroy Sir Cadogan's portrait," Colin threatened, but his anger was spent now, just lingering annoyance and a pout most girls would die to achieve.

The Fat Lady's ripped canvas had been taken off the wall and replaced by Sir Cadogan and his fat, grey pony. Colin wasn't the only one unhappy with this. Sir Cadogan spent half his time challenging people to duels and the rest thinking up ridiculously complicated passwords which he changed at least twice a day.

Colin rested his head in his fist and looked at his friends despairingly. "Is it too late to switch to Hufflepuff?"

Ginny patted Colin on the back and shared the new Gryffindor password with him. Ginny recalled everything after her memory removal with startling clarity. She reckoned it was a sort of compensation, like a blind man having good hearing, and she took it for granted. Whatever it was, it enabled her to keep up with Sir Cadogan random password changes, unlike Colin and Emma and most other Gryffindor.

Emma had dragged Ginny over to complain to her brother. Percy's eyes grew very wide in front of Emma's vocal wrath, and more than a few heads turned to witness Emma go crazy. It wasn't an affirmed fact, but it seemed a given that Emma didn't understand the definition of not making a scene. In this instance, she had the full support of Gryffindor.

Percy just took off his wired-rimmed classed and rubbed his eyes wearily. When he finally responded, long after Emma ran out of steam, he sounded exhausted. "It's not that easy, no other picture wanted the job, he's the only one brave enough to volunteer and lunatic or not you just have to put up with him."

Colin tried his best, but he wandered around blatantly unaware of the password most of the time. He repeated it now, and nodded his head, password committed to memory until the next change. His face brightened, and then Colin looked around, immediate problem resolved, and chirped, "So, what are you up to?"

"Just looking for our creature," said Jake with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"_Still?_" said Colin. He picked up Ginny's abandoned book, and flicked through it. "And _I _need a life?"

* * *

Ginny and Emma barely arrived to class on time. She glanced at the other girl, noting her splotchy eyes and pale complexion, and wondered if this was such a good idea. Lupin would understand if they left, after... 

"You okay?"

"Not really," said Emma, with a sad, little smile. She swiped her hand on her eyes. "I think I preferred denial."

"Yeah," Ginny agreed. She squeezed Emma's hand. This wouldn't go away. Neither would this new expression of Emma's.

"Don't tell anyone," Emma demanded.

"Everyone is gonna find out," said Ginny softly.

"Just not yet. It's never going to be the same again, but let me pretend for a little while, before the whole world knows," Emma pleaded.

"I won't say anything."

"You won't say what?" asked Mary, who has just materialised around the corner, cheeks flushed and lips swollen. She looked between the two of them. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," mumbled Emma.

Mary looked to Ginny, who nodded in agreement, but Mary remained unconvinced. Emma stared down at her feet, teary-eyed again. Ginny bit the inside of her cheek, and hoped her lie wouldn't both Emma later.

"Marc," she mouthed to Mary. Marc, a fourth year Gryffindor who Emma had her eye on, and they all knew about it.

Mary's eyes widened and her mouth formed an 'oh'. She didn't probe any further, just nodded, and slipped into the classroom ahead of them as the bell rang.

Emma sniffed and Ginny winced. She should have thought of a better cover, one that didn't involve Emma's older sister. She also liked Marc, and it was a source of bitter tension between the two about who got him. One with no winners now.

Emma shuffled into the classroom after Mary, and Ginny bought up the rear. She froze at the sight in front of her. Maybe they were in the wrong classroom? Snape glowered, pacing up and down in front of the board.

"Professor Lupin says he is feeling too ill to teach today," Snape explained, a malicious note in his tone. His lips were curved into what might emerge as a smile. He got his wish to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts.

Ginny nodded mutely and joined Jake and Colin, with Emma sitting just behind them, and Mary rooted near the door. "What's wrong with him, sir?" Mary wondered. She was the only one nosey enough to ask what almost everyone was wondering.

"Nothing life threatening," he said, looking as though he wished it was.

Perhaps it was too early in the day, or else everyone was smarter than Ginny gave them credit for, but no one voiced another word. No hushed whispers, or anyone piping up with an answer or a question, just Snape's lecture. He didn't remain at the desk, but swooped up and down the aisles of the classroom, eyes watchful for anything he could use to the dock points. He looked out of place. His strides were too long for the cramped classroom.

Snape didn't notice Jake's inattention. He didn't look particularly suspicious, quietly writing, but he _wasn't _taking notes. He constantly wrote, and Ginny knew that he wasn't a slow writer. He didn't need the pauses Snape allowed them to take down the notes. Ginny didn't know what Jake was doing, because he kept his parchment hidden from her. He wouldn't do that if it were just homework. Maybe he was writing a novel. It was impossible to tell. If Snape noticed he would expose it to the whole class, but he didn't, and the mystery remained.

Sneaky. Ginny tore her gaze away from Jake. She didn't want to be the one to give him up. No wonder the Sorting Hat considered Slytherin; Jake had a way of getting away with things. Ginny half turned, and looked at Emma who never noticed the concern, staring listlessly out the window, and taking half-hearted notes.

There really was no escape from the Dementors. They feed off peace and happiness, and bred misery and dejection. It would be worse now with Black's brief appearance, and Ginny suspected that Emma's sister wouldn't be the only victim of that. The sooner Black was caught the better, but they'd have to hold out longer, until winter's end. Endure the Dementors. Ginny's skin crawled with their presence, felt them sneaking around the grounds, lurking and waiting for the next student to come close, praying off them, and no doubt Jake snuck out.

But had he gotten away from it? His brother hadn't bank on crossing a Manticore, and surely Jake was arrogant enough to believe he'd be unaffected by the Dementors while searching for the invisible horse-creatures. It all made perfect sense, from Colin's offhand comment about Jake's occasional nightly disappearance to Jake's conviction that he would be a murder. He had been caught by the Dementors when out hunting. He shouldn't have snuck out, but it was too late to do anything about. He'd survive. He was tougher than Emma's sister.

Maybe Ginny was too, but she didn't want to chance it, not after a horrific description she read of the Dementor's Kiss. It just wasn't worth it.

* * *

Funny, how confident vows can be smashed to pieces. All it took was one wildcard in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Paper fluttered out a window, and even though the lines of a barcode where erased from Ginny's neck, they hadn't vanished from the parchment. X-5 486. It meant something to somebody, and that would cast a different light on the growing darkness of Hogwarts.

Another presence to sneak around, spy and gather information, waiting for the moment to strike, and breaching the Wizarding World just as effectively as Ginny herself.

Should have been more careful.

Would in future.

Only that future lay deeply entwined with an abandoned past. Both of which ignored the present, and that was what would suffer. Deeply.

Whether it was good or bad, a lot came out of sneaking.

* * *

_**Author's note:** was dodgy yesterday and wouldn't let me upload, so here this is today (provided some cosmic force out there won't stop me again from posting). The next chapter should be posted before May. _


	8. Purple

**

* * *

****Chapter 7: Purple **

* * *

An ear-piercing wail woke Ginny up. She groaned and hid her head under her pillow. This didn't quite achieve the muffle effect she desired. The noise actually grew louder and more painful. The shriek bounced off the walls and reverberated in her ears. Finally, a dull thud silenced the screech. But Ginny had become so used to the noise that she felt strangely unsettled when it stopped, suddenly aware of a sharp headache and bone-aching tiredness.

Ginny removed her pillow and peeked out the crack in the curtains that hung around her bed. There was no apparent source of the racket. Ginny relaxed and settled back into bed. Just another hour and she'd get up. But her plan was destroyed by Kate staggering bleary-eyed out of bed and in the general direction of the bathroom. It wasn't the weekend...and worse yet, Ginny was late. No time for sleep. Usually she never heard Kate's alarm; or if she did, was already up and in the bathroom. It wasn't half as annoying that way. It was why Ginny got up earlier than the other girls – she _really_ didn't like loud sounds early in the morning. They were unnatural.

Some days it didn't pay to get out of bed. It wasn't one of those days. No. It was one where even if she stayed in bed, the day would still suck. Ginny liked to consider herself an optimist though, and with little effort drifted back asleep again, hoping that the day would go okay if she didn't move. Nothing could go wrong if she didn't do anything, right?

A hand jostled Ginny. Sunlight streamed in through the slit of her curtains created by the unsympathetic hand. "Ginny. Ginny!" called out a voice in singsong.

Ginny mumbled something, hoping whoever it was would take it that she was awake and leave her alone to sleep some more. Her mouth felt dry and bitter against her thick tongue.

"Rise and shine," bleated the girl. Kate. Her mouth was dangerously close to Ginny's ears, and Ginny could _sense_ the giant smile on Kate's lips. Turnabout was hardly fair play, and Kate was getting sick pleasure out of this role-reversal.

Ginny remained still. She clung on to the last remnants of sleep, and tried to hold a wisp of a dream straight in her head. Something about a bird. It didn't make sense but had seemed quite important at the time.

"Fine. Just rise then if you can't shine," Mary compromised, getting it on the act. Her voice was cajoling as if trying to bribe a four year old down from the ceiling. She must be aware of her tone, but she didn't change it or defend it.

"Don't wanna," Ginny muttered. She twisted her blanket tight around her body knowing that Kate would soon turn vicious and attempt to steal them. Ginny was never_ that _bad in the morning, and didn't deserve this. Couldn't they just leave her alone?

"Fine. You can stay then," said Mary, tone thick with sarcasm (since when was Mary sarcastic anyway?), which Ginny completely overlooked.

"Really?" asked Ginny hopefully, and popped her head up to eye Mary. It sounded too good to be true.

Mary gave her a hard look and then rolled her eyes. Clearly, it _was_ too good. So much for optimism, it didn't really work.

"No, 'fraid life doesn't work like that, honey," said Kate. Accusing now. "You never let me sleep."

"'s different."

"Ginny!" the duo chorused.

"Go away!"

There was a beat of silence. Ginny didn't dare relax; she heard their steady breathing and knew they hadn't left. She was prepared for the attack, but her sleep dulled reflexes weren't effective enough to evade the two girls. Kate dragged the blankets away ruthlessly while Mary tugged her out of bed. It was more of a slaughter than a battle.

Ginny could have cried. How could she face the _entire _day when all she felt capable of was collapsing in bed? It wasn't fair, but her friends were determined to get her up, and Ginny was on her feet. Dizziness struck like a pick-axe, and Ginny swayed. Her arm snapped out to hold the bedpost for balance, but the room circular room continued to spin. Ginny wasn't quite sure whose bed she leaned heavily against. Emma's maybe?

She swallowed dryly and contemplated the glass of water on her locker. Ginny decided against it. The water would be warm and sour now. She'd rather wait until breakfast to relive her achy throat. Pumpkin juice would do the job. Ginny's stomach rolled in protest. Or maybe not. Water it was, and a slice of toast. She could choke down that, but first she had to struggle with her uniform.

"You okay?" Mary wondered.

No. Not remotely.

"Just the flu, I guess," Ginny mumbled.

Kate nodded. "Right time of the year, at any rate. Maybe you should go back to bed. You're kinda looking pale."

Neither of them could have realised this two minutes ago. Ginny forced a small smile onto her lips. Her dry lips cracked against the movement. "Yeah, I think I'll head to the Infirm-I mean- Hospital Wing. Go on ahead."

The two girls hesitated, but Kate's grumbling stomach drove them away. Mary threw a casting look over her shoulder at Ginny, seizing her up. Ginny knew it was a fluke, an extraordinary moment of good luck, that they left. Mary wanted to stay and hover.

But they left. Thank God. Ginny eyed her bed wistfully, but knew if she lay down for even a moment she wouldn't get up, and then everyone would be convinced that she was sick. And what could she say? That she developed a random case of shakes? That each episode was lasting longer and robbed her of more control? That it was completely humiliating not being able to do anything about it? Ginny had no idea what was wrong with her, and she'd rather be alone in that ignorance than having everyone know the truth. It was better this way.

Getting dressed was a slow process, and it was an immense relief that nobody was waiting. She was almost finished. Just shoes now. They gleamed maliciously under the harsh sunlight. Tying shoelaces is easy. Well it was; yesterday it was a thoughtless task that she took for granted. Deft fingers manipulated laces and looped them into a tight bow. _Simple_. But now her shaking hands refused to cooperate – she couldn't grip the laces with enough coordination to form the loop needed to secure the bow.

One final attempt. Ginny picked up the laces with fumbling hands and a weary sigh. She clumsily pulled them together into two loops and slid one under the other. Inevitably, Ginny's finger slipped causing the loops to collapse into long snakes of untied strings. Ginny kicked the shoes off, barely resisting the urge to fling them across the room. She may have regressed to the physical inability of a five year old, but at least she could retain a relatively mature attitude. It was all she had left.

Ginny took a deep breath and closed her eyes. There had to be a third option. There was always another choice. Bill drilled that into her head, as effectively as his boss pounded it into his. A valuable life skill. If there wasn't a choice, make one and prevent the situation arising again. Ginny could solve the second part of that by pre-tying the laces. She did it with her runners all the time, but that was more so out of laziness than practicality.

The obvious solution appeared. Ginny dropped to her knees in front of her bed. She reached under for her runners. It took several attempts for her uncooperative hands to ensnare them, but Ginny persevered. Getting them on was no great bother – she just crammed her feet in. No bother with laces.

Ginny sank down on the bed. Spent. She was exhausted to begin the day, but now she was stalled. The allure of bed held no appeal. She had to get up and force herself through the day. Prove that she was okay. Right, that was as easy as tying shoelaces. Ginny stared down at her twitching feet. Her purple runners quavered. A fatal sign. Her feet were never affected before, but Ginny knew how this would continue. The tremors would clump up her legs and down her arms – a helpless shaking wreck. It was getting worse, and the third choice was impossible to find. How long could she put off the inevitable?

The runners were snug around Ginny's feet and offered her comforting security that her inability to tie laces tried to rob her of. They were like a child's teddy bear in a dark, shadowy room, but much as Ginny was too old for a teddy, her feet were growing too big for these runners. She wouldn't throw them though. Ginny needed the reassurance of them. Clearly 486 hadn't bought them; what sort of number bought purple runners? It was an intentional decision based on a personality numbers didn't have. It meant that there was something more in her life, something worth remembering. And almost as far back as Ginny could remember, she was looking for that something.

* * *

"Why can't I stay in Egypt?" Ginny asked. One last attempt to stall the inevitable future. They were outside the hospital now in the cool British air. Ginny huddled into her jacket, fleetingly wishing for the small hospital room, which connected her in a vague way to Egypt and her past. Egypt wasn't home, but it was the closest thing she had. A familiar place. 

"It's not safe," came the prompt, oft-recited line.

London was foreign. This wasn't where she belonged. That knowledge was innate. Ginny was far away from Egypt's painfully blue skies and yellow sand. And there was no going back. It wasn't just Bill. It was everyone - all the experts and Healers. They couldn't agree on anything except that Ginny should be kept away from the tomb. It wasn't her safety in consideration, Ginny knew that; she was just some random fluke. One that they couldn't control or understood, and as a result, not to be let near the ancient dangerous magics of Egypt.

"It's not safe to cross the street," Ginny muttered.

Bill sighed and knelt down in front of her. He put a hand on her shoulder and opened his mouth, but shook his head, and snapped his mouth shut. He rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Yeah, and that's why the danger is minimised. You cross at the traffic lights, and you don't stay in the middle of the road like an idiot. You get me?"

"I'm hardly going to sneak back into the tomb!"

"Well, what's there for you then?"

Bill's harsh words rang out in the air for a long moment, before an echo returned the last syllable. Ginny stared down at her runners. Purple. She didn't remember buying them, and didn't know why she picked them, but despite that clung onto the runners. They were too big. She had to stuff the tips with tissue. They had given her new runners – ones which fit perfectly, but Ginny returned to these still.

- - -

_"Your glass slippers, my highness," Bill said mockingly, with a sarcastic half-bow and hand flourish._

_He presented a cardboard shoebox to Ginny, who stared at the box for a long moment, before accepting it. She didn't want or particularly need new runners. She already had a decent pair, and it wasn't like they let her out of St. Mungo's. Ginny saw her future stretched out before her – a lifetime of these four walls and an endlessly stream of experts wandering by, theorising and making educated guesses. Nothing that required new footwear. This was just pretence._

_Ginny opened the box, and separated the brown tissue paper to reveal two adjacent white runners. She took out a shoe and yanked the paper out of it. She placed it down on her bed, and turned to the other shoe with deliberate carefulness, as though the task required this level of care. Ginny looked around; her eyes feel of on purple runners half-hiding under the bed. She shook her head, and picked up her new runners. White and stiff. Pristine. The two tongues stared up at Ginny mockingly. She laced up the runners, and looked to Bill._

_"They fit?" he wondered._

_Ginny shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."_

_Bill rolled his eyes and crouched down in front of the bed. He reached out and squeezed the top of one runner with his thumb and forefinger, checking the space at the tip. "They seem okay, walk around – take them out for a spin."_

_"A spin?"_

_"Yeah, like a test drive."_

_Ginny gamely stood up and walked around in quick circle. Twenty paces and she had covered the room. An entire circuit. Ginny wriggled her toes. There was less space than in her previous runners. They were a better fit. But her feet would grow, and she'd return to the purple ones. It couldn't take that long. She had missed three years in the blink of an eye, hadn't she after all?_

_"They're fine."_

_"Excellent, I found my Cinderella," Bill joked. Hix eyes took on a glazed look. "I totally missed my vocation as a shoe salesperson," he mused._

- - -

"What's anywhere else for me?" Ginny returned. She squashed down the searing hurt under a hard edge. She shifted away from Bill and crossed her arms. Just a part of his job, she told herself. His niceness and care didn't actually mean anything. She was just a responsibility, and one that he was all too happy to unload. Fine. Whatever. She didn't really care anyway. He was just another faceless expert in a long line.

"A life, a future, a family. The world ahead of you," Bill listed off. His tone was even, and his expression was carefully neutral. "What else could you want?"

"I don't want this life, and I don't want a new one," Ginny admitted.

"You can't go back in time."

"Yeah? Well, I jumped forward."

"Hardly."

"It's a theory. How does someone go into a room and emerge three years later within a day? Time travel. As reasonable as all that other shit."

"Your time-travelling days are over then," said Bill with an air of finality. He rose to his full height again and held out his hand to Ginny. His eyes were hard, unreachable.

Ginny didn't move.

"You're the one who _admitted_ it was dangerous to cross the road," Bill snapped. His arm didn't waver as he glared down at her.

"I'll find traffic lights," Ginny retorted.

"Give me your hand."

"I don't need you to hold my hand."

Bill pried her crossed arms apart and grabbed her hand. Ginny tried to tug her hand out of his grip, but he just tightened his hold. Annoyance shattered his cool mask. "God, since when where you such a brat?" He muttered, and tugged her down the street.

"Since you turned into a jerk."

Bill's grip wasn't painful, but it was firm, and she couldn't slip away. He dragged her across the street. Ginny ceased her struggle and trudged along. The late afternoon sky was colourless. People in dark clothing, heads bowed, scurried in the shadows of buildings which loomed over the grey streets. Any splotch of colour which might appear in hair was tucked into hats, hoods and scarves. Pale skin smudged with dirt, and eyes focused listlessly on the ground. It was a far cry from white smiles shining out from tanned, leathery skin and cool robes swaying in a light breeze.

"I wanna go home," Ginny whispered. She wanted purple runners and the barren deserts of Africa. She knew how to deal with that, and had managed okay on her own then when she was wandered aimlessly (barring, of course, her accident with the tomb). And if she hadn't been by herself, then there were people out there who cared about her. That would be nice, but three years down the line, would they still be around? Ginny was willing to look, but as the line went: it wasn't safe.

Bill stopped walking. He stared at Ginny with an expression that she couldn't decipher. Regret, maybe. Or was that further irritation? "We can't do that."

"Yeah." The word came out broken. When the terms 'foster care' and 'orphanage' were being thrown around, Ginny knew that. But it was hard to admit it. There was no such place as home. All she would have was someplace place they put her while they tried to solve this mystery. She was too valuable to throw away and too deadly to keep around.

"I'll arrange something," Bill promised.

Ginny nodded wordlessly and now returned the grip on his hand.

Bill kept his promises.

She could put history and the past on hold for awhile.

* * *


	9. Morning

_Day's dawning, skin's crawling  
__Pure morning  
__Placebo – Pure Morning_

* * *

**Chapter 8: Morning**

"Morning," mumbled Jake though a mouthful of toast. He raised the half-eaten slice of toast in a salute.

A small stack of bread rested between him and Colin. The two boys had persuaded the House Elves into leaving bread, condiments and a large toasting fork for them in the Common Room. After initial weariness, the House Elves happily obliged. Jake got his extra fifteen minutes in bed and Mary didn't have to put up with him in the morning anymore. Everyone was happy.

Except Ginny. The aroma of jam and marmalade invaded her nose and made her stomach turn. That usually didn't bother her. She even joined them on occasion - mainly when scribbling an essay due in the first class. It was an amazing time-saver, and had the added bonus of relative quietness and peace. Peace that she needed today. It was a better alternative to the Great Hall for breakfast, if limited in selection, but Ginny wasn't feeling particularly hungry today.

"Good morning, even," added Colin.

He held a slice of bread over the fire, toasting it to perfection. He was quite finky about his toast. He pulled it towards him, and eyed its brownness carefully. He deemed it satisfactory and carefully spread butter over its entire surface with the intensity of a curse-breaker at work. Colin must be the only person in the world that was so particular about toast.

Ginny flopped down on the sofa beside him, and disinterestedly watched him smother his toast with butter. She bought a leg up and curled it underneath her, obscuring any potential shaking which might occur again.

"Mornings aren't good. They are down right evil," Jake declared.

Ginny nodded. A new pain slashed through the front of her head. She suppressed a whimper, and grabbed a slice of Jake's toast. He made a face, but didn't swipe her hand away.

"It's Friday, so History of Magic first. You can sleep through that and pass the morning away," suggested Ginny. She contemplated the same thing herself. Although the overwhelming fog of tiredness passed into a overcast alertness now. Nothing, of course, which Professor Binns' droning couldn't remove.

Ginny took a tiny bite of toast. It was dry – butter also made her stomach protest – and stuck to the top of her mouth. She managed to swallow it and struggled though the rest of the slice. The crunch of toast sounded like a dragon's roar. The slight sound was magnified, booming over Colin and Jake's chatter. Ginny dropped the toast back onto the plate. Maybe she wouldn't bother eating after all.

Jake frowned and stared at Ginny's jiggling foot. Ginny's gaze was drawn to it too. She couldn't control the movement. Her other foot, which was firmly pinned beneath her and unable to twitch, allowed her pass this off as restlessness - she hoped.

"Have you attacked coffee already?" Jake asked, an amused glint in his dark eyes, and there was probably some jealously there too.

Although Jake had the House Elves wrapped around his finger, they rationed his coffee supply. He frequently had to survive without his beloved beverage. Ginny didn't know how he managed it, but somehow the House Elves loved Jake, and happily did anything - well most things - for him.

Ginny half-shrugged, letting the action speak for whatever answer Jake chose to interpreted it as. If only she could blame coffee. There was a solution for that; go cold turkey. Her diet didn't seem to affect her shakes at all, so there was no point in trying to change that.

Jake picked up the toasting fork and warmed another piece of bread, still pouting over his lack of coffee. Colin absorbed himself in his camera. Quietness settled over them, until Colin's head popped up and he twisted around.

"All right, Harry?"

"Hullo, Colin," Harry replied automatically, not even glancing at the younger boy or pausing, just an automatic reflex like breathing.

Ron rolled his eyes and leaned over to whisper something to Hermione. Ginny shouldn't have caught it but she did. "I bet him and Ginny have started a fan club," he muttered.

Ginny flushed. She gave Ron a vicious death glare. Wasn't he such a comedian? Hermione didn't laugh, but she wouldn't, not with Ginny two feet away. Instead, she poked Ron and jerked her head over at Ginny. Guilt flashed across his face upon seeing Ginny's mutinous expression. The trio quickly kept walking passed.

"His obsession is just a phase he's going through. He'll grow out of it," Jake coached himself, tone ironic. He stretched his legs out in front of him and wriggled in the armchair, trying to get comfortable.

"I'm not obsessed," Colin denied as always. This was a well rehearsed banter between the duo. They probably did it in their sleep as well. "He's just _Harry Potter_. He's a hero, saved Ginny last year, didn't he?"

Ginny stiffened at the casual reference. Colin wasn't conscious then and he didn't live through the darkness of those months. He couldn't know how flippant his comment was. Most of the school knew what happened, but new topics of interest arose, and Ginny was shuttled back to the shadows again. No one ever mentioned it.

"She got a picture and everything," said Jake sarcastically. He rolled his eyes for good measure. He gave Ginny a look, knowing that this was a taboo topic, and apologetic on Colin's behalf. She didn't bug him about his family, and he returned that favour by pretending to be unaware of what happened last year. It worked for them, only Colin was a wildcard, with nothing to hide and a tendency to say everything.

"Really?" His eyes light up, hands quivering around his camera.

"No. Why would she have a picture, you dolt?" said Jake, he gave Colin a light shove, not enough power in there to hurt Colin or even jerk the camera out of his hands. "Not everyone brings their camera everything.

"I don't even have a c-camera," Ginny admitted. She managed to keep her face bland although she wined at the minced word. The shakes which violated her body, robbed her tongue and deprived her of clear speech.

Jake picked up on it like a vulture and immediately mimiked her stutter. "C-c-c-c-camera?"

"As in Clever Cat," Colin piped up.

Ginny and Jake gave him blank looks. His amusement and her annoyance were forgotten in confusion.

"Annie Apple, Bouncing Ben, Clever Cat. It's the Letterland alphabet. You never heard of it?" Disbelief, and a hint of disapproval. "You two are deprived. I expected better of you, Jake."

"Sorry man, but I didn't go to special school," Jake quipped, a bewildered look lingering in his dark eyes. He made a vague hand gesture at Ginny who nodded in agreement, a bond forged between them as victims of Colin's scorn.

"This _is_ a special school."

"_Special_ special school," Ginny clarified, careful to pronounce the hissing S sounds. Dave, the first-year with a stutter, wandered by and it would be just cruel to stutter, whether intentionally or not.

"Whatever."

Ginny's half-eaten slice of toast churned in her stomach, threatening to come up far more efficiently than it went down. Ginny swallowed but it only ensured that the taste of bile lingered in her mouth.

"Agh," she mumbled, cradling her head in her hands, preferring darkness over the spinning room. "I don't feel well."

"You look kind of pale," Colin ventured. The statement sounded almost like a question. He pitched his voice quiet, acting like she was dying, and despite how much it felt like that, Ginny knew that she wasn't.

"Go to the Inf-Hospital Wing," suggested Jake, hastily correcting himself, but not quickly enough.

"Infirmary," said Ginny. Her voice sounded very quiet. Jake made the same slip as her. Sure, he caught himself, but she caught the word. Her eyes narrowed as she regarded her friend, feeling that there was some clue lurking there.

He shrugged, but the tenseness in his back belied the causal gesture. "I spell colour without a U," was the only explanation Jake gave.

"In _ER_ they always called it a hospital, that can't just be an American thing," Colin argued.

"America is a big place, different slang everywhere. And you watched _ER_? That ended like decades ago," said Jake, tone changing from defensive to scornfully amused.

Colin flushed and cross his arms in front of his chest. "I was sick and there was a rerun special. Nothing else on."

"I don't believe you. Bet you go for _Cornation Street_ too?" Jake taunted, posture more relaxed now as they re-entered familiar territory.

The two boys bantered back and forward. Vicious jabs and sarcastic quips were volleyed with an intensity that hurt Ginny's head. She eyed Jake, knowing that the pieces were all there, and trying to get them to click.

He used the term Infirmary.

She did too (by accident).

He was from America.

She was from nowhere.

Did that imply she was from the general area as Jake? Ginny...an American? She couldn't even do a passable accent. It seemed so wrong, but she wasn't Egyptian, despite that being her first memory. She was from somewhere else entirely. Why not America? A Yank. Ginny shook her head, hiding a little smile, the news wasn't unwelcome. Every bit of her last life was welcome. Except the seizures.

Ginny pulled herself to her feet. Her head swam alarmingly. She stood still for a long moment, eyes closed, breathing deeply and trying desperately not to throw up. The shakes were never like this before. She never felt sick as she shook.

"I'm going to the Hospital Wing," Ginny announced. She nodded her head to add weight to her executive decision. She couldn't pretend any longer that if she ignored this that it might go away. No third option.

"Want company?" Jake offered immediately, already rising to his feet before she could answer.

"What about class?" wondered Colin, but he too stood up. It was a halfhearted protest at best, as though he felt someone had to say it whether he cared or not.

"This is a very valid excuse for not showing up," Jake explained slowly in a matter-of-fact tone, as though he was talking to a complete idiot, which could be debatable, Colin had his moments.

"Aww, and here I thought it was out of concern," Ginny quipped.

She was shaking slightly but it would get worse. This was merely a warm-up to a painful performance. Ginny was tired. Her head hurt and her limbs felt like jelly. She didn't want this to be her problem any longer. Someone else could take care of it. Her only concern was to make it to the Hospital Wing without falling on her face in a twitching mass.

She scrambled with tremendous effort out of the portrait hole and slowly descended the staircases to the Hospital Wing. The heavy door loomed far too soon and yet not quickly enough in front of Ginny. She squared her shoulders and let out a whoosh of breath.

"I hate hospitals," she muttered.

Jake patted her on the shoulder. "Don't we all."

"I don't," piped up Colin.

"You're a freak."

"Am not."

"One, camera obsessed. Two, ER. Of course you don't mind them, probably purposely got hit last year to spend months in there."

"Hey! Slander!"

The two voices drifted away in the distance leaving Ginny alone to face her doom. She knocked on the door, it took several attempts - her fist shook badly. Two sharp raps.

"Come in," Madam Pomfrey called out, tone distracted.

Ginny contemplated turning away because the matron was busy.

One last chance to back out...

* * *

_**A/n:** Thanks for sticking with this despite the dodgy updates. Things should be a lot better now. The next update will actually be next week (as opposed to the forthnightly update I promised and didn't adher to) and the next few updates will definitely be every second week if not every week._


	10. Unknown

**Previously:**

"Come in," Madam Pomfrey called out.

One last chance to back out...

* * *

**Chapter 9: Unknown**

Or search for a third option. Ginny sighed. That seemed overrated. There was hardly going to be an ideal solution anyway. Happy endings and convenient _deux ex machina_ only happened in books, and Ginny wasn't even that fond of fiction to begin with.

Ginny hastily entered before Madam Pomfrey would call out again. She'd rather just get this over and done with now.

"Good morning, Ginny. Flu again, is it?" Madam Pomfrey asked.

She spared a glance from her work and waved Ginny over to a bed. Ginny sat down and planted her feet firmly on the ground. She stared at the Madam Pomfrey. The woman was hunched over a cauldron, intent on the concoction.

"Uh, I guess," said Ginny.

Did that mean Madam Pomfrey wasn't just an applied Healer? Healers, and especially those who acted as school nurses and worked alongside an expert Potions Master, didn't prepare their own potions. Their time was better spent with patients. That must mean that Madam Pomfrey was an experimental Healer too and she was inventing or something. She owned more qualifications than Ginny ever realised. What was she doing working in a school? Or was it just some bizarre hobby? It seemed unlikely.

Madam Pomfrey wiped her hands on a tea towel and abandoned her apparatus to examine Ginny. She felt Ginny's forehead. Her hand was icy. Ginny shivered.

"You have a temperature," Madam Pomfrey noted. "Headache? Nausea?"

"Um, yeah..." Ginny trailed off. "But I don't feel warm. Do I have a high temperature?"

It was actually one thing that was alright with her – not having a high temperature. This was why she hated hospitals. They always found something wrong with you that you were perfectly happy not knowing. Was there anything _not _wrong with her?

_Defective_.

"_Accio_ thermometer," muttered Madam Pomfrey.

The device dashed into her hand. Madam Pomrey fidgeted with it briefly and passed it to Ginny. Ginny pulled a face but inserted it in her mouth. Madam Pomfrey fluttered away and half vanished into a large cabinet at the end of the room.

Pressure pushed on Ginny's spine. The shakes escalated. Quivering qualms stretched through her very being and tore her apart. Ginny clenched her hands against the edge of the bed. Her arms trembled as though straining against a heavy weight.

Madam Pomfrey returned with a small globe. Ginny saw similar ones before when she was in St. Mungo's. She didn't know what they did, just assumed that they were paperweights. Evidently, they actually had a function.

"Keep still, don't want to affect the reading," Madam Pomfrey instructed.

"_Don't move," snapped the Doctor. "Or I'll have you restrained and put into isolation."_

_The transgenic lay on an examination table. Cold metal pressed into Its stomach. It inhaled a shallow breath and released it slowly, hardly daring to breath for fear that it would qualify as movement. It clenched Its eyes closed and tensed._

_The Doctor leaned over It. It remained stiff, wanting to move and hide, but frozen by the threat, passively waiting the pain. It would hurt. It always did. But It was a good soldier and accepted that pain. The Doctor rubbed a swab against the small of Its back. The scent of alcohol whiffed at Its nostrils. _

_Protocol. It was a necessary action for hygiene, and It understood that otherwise the Doctor wouldn't have bothered. This operation was very important. It was imperative that it went perfectly._

_It felt a tip of a needle against Its back. Then the needle plunged into Its back. It managed to remain still, avoiding flinching away from the penetrating tip or crying out. The needle poked down an inch, or perhaps several. It couldn't tell. Its eyes flickered open. Its reflection stared up at It from the metal table, face pale and strained._

_It didn't move._

Madam Pomfrey clucked her tongue, and read the thermometer, unimpressed with the result. She didn't tell Ginny, and Ginny didn't ask. Her headache turned into a full-blown migraine, and Ginny felt vaguely detached, like if she let go of the bed she might fall away into oblivion. She couldn't deal with words too.

Madam Pomfrey fiddled with the globe. She opened a hatch, which she placed the tip of her wand in. Ginny craned her neck to see what was inside, curiosity overcoming pain and dizzinness, but she couldn't see anything. The globe glowed.

"What's that?" Ginny asked.

"It's the Fieurt test," Madam Pomfrey said. She pulled her wand out of the globe. A sandy substance clung to the tip. "Lie down."

Ginny didn't move for a long moment, already regretting her decision to come here. But it was too late to turn back, and doing things half-way would be just as bad as submitting completely. She sank back into the narrow bed. Her feet hung off the end and her head rested a foot from the pillow. She looked up at Madam Pomfrey expectantly.

Madam Pomfrey placed the tip of her wand against Ginny's forehead. A cool trickling sensation shivered down from it. It opposed the shakes, and the two sensations seemed to cancel each other out. A temporary haven. Ginny's nerves tingled on edge.

Madam Pomfrey pulled her wand away and stared at it.

"What does it say?" Ginny asked, unable to spare the energy to move her over-strained muscles. She was content just to lie here in this cocoon of safety.

"Not what it should," Madam Pomfrey muttered.

Safety shattered. Madam Pomfrey's face was grim, lines pulled downwards, as opposed to her usual upbeat expression. Her eyes met Ginny's. They contained an indecipherable gleam.

"What is it supposed to be?" Now Ginny was frowning too.

"The common case of someone displaying your symptoms would be someone over-exerting themselves magically, body unable to cope and brain sending off haywire signals," Madam Pomfrey explained. Her voice was distant like she was thinking aloud. Her textbook explanation lacked any real depth of clarification.

It – the eye of the storm – ended and without any warning the shakes snapped back into full affect. Ginny's back arched, body spasming. Her whole frame trashed and jerked, muscles pushed beyond limit. Infinitely shaking. Nothing else existed but the shakes, the crisp Hospital Wing and its neat rows of beds and Emma's sister faded into bleak barracks. Madam Pomfrey was replaced by a gruff drill instructor.

"_Attention," the Drill Instructor bellowed. His voice reverberated in the narrow space, echoing off the grey walls and drifting out the window into the cold snow outside._

_The order was met with a prompt response. Everyone had been woken up by his heavy footfalls and the door slamming closed. Within seconds, the transgenics scrambled out of bed and stood at the foot, postures rigid and ramod. Blank eyes gazed a hundred point stare. Perfect response. Perfect formation._

_Perfection._

_Although pregrey dawn light had yet to filter into the room, they were all alert and prepared for this unscheduled training session. _

_Except Jack. From the corner of her eye she saw Jack's eyes grow very round with badly concealed surprise and not a small amount of fear. His hands were clasped behind his back, but that pressure wasn't enough. The tremble was minute, but it was there. Shakes – loss of motor function control_

_The thump of the Drill Instructor's boot fell silent. He stopped in front of her. His nostrils flared, the only warning, and his hand snapped out. It collided solidly with her cheek. She staggered back with the blow, but quickly resumed her stance. Her cheek burned, both with pain (even a transgenic couldn't stand against a six-foot man using his full strength) and humilation that he found fault and made her an example._

"_Do you think you're better than the others?"_

"_No sir."_

"_I can't hear you!"_

"_**No, sir,**" she repeated, voice as loud as his. The throb in her cheek, which had faded, made its presence known at movement._

_He loomed over her. An unfamiliar smell wafted from his breath. She struggled not to cringe away from the overpowering stench and his twitching hand._

"_Then why did you choose to keep your eyes front?"_

_She didn't say anything. The truth was not an option, and anything else sounded like an excuse._

"_Inability?" he hissed. His voice was soft now. Dangerous._

"_No sir," she responded. _

_She ensured that her eyes were glued ahead now, exactly how the Drill Instructor wanted. From the side of her eye, she could see her cheek swell and begin to turn an unpleasant mottled purple. The sight of her pain seemed to intensify it. _

"_I don't believe you," the Drill Instructor claimed. There was a shadow of stubble on his chin, not clean-shaven as usual. In the darkness of night, his eyes flashed dangerously. He found a victim that he could exploit._

"_You stay here with me, solider, and we'll see if we can't rectify that," he decided. He stepped away from her, and paced up and down the line again. "Everyone else report to training room 1C."_

"_Yes, sir," a resounding echo filled the barracks. Ominous. Words perfectly in unison._

"_Dismissed."_

_The crunch of boots filled her ears as they marched by. Zack spared her a long look, and Jack a grateful one. His hands were steady again. He must have thought her slip was intentional, to save him, but Zack knew better, understood that she wasn't as perfect as was required to be. The shakes haunted Jake, but inferiority stalked her steps._

_She'd have them yet, she knew, but for now, she stood at attention and dismissed all thoughts of the future and the coming punishment. The Drill Instructor drew out the suspense, letting fear creep in, and then he stepped forward._

Someone moved. Quiet footsteps shuffled around Ginny's bed. Ginny resisted the urge to open her eyes and check whom. She lay still, and took a moment to organise her thoughts. They were fuzzy and distant like a radio playing softly in another room. But Ginny figured it out.

She was in the Hospital Wing. The shakes. Ginny stiffened and took a register of her limbs, but found no telltale twitching. Had Madam Pomfrey fixed the shakes or did they just pass? There was a deep ache in her body. Ginny couldn't pinpoint the location; it was just a large throbbing pain.

Something cold clasped around Ginny's arm. Ginny spent long enough in Hospitals to identify it as a monitor. A small little thing, no more than an armband, which alerted the Healer in charge of any unauthorised change in state. It would register Ginny's consciousness any second now, best to do this on her own terms.

Ginny shifted causing a flash of pain to shoot up her spine. She let out a quiet groan. Ginny cracked open her eyes and blinked several times rapidly. The Hospital Wing came into focus from a swirl of cream objects.

"You're awake?" Madam Pomfrey asked.

She pressed her hand against Ginny's forehead again. It lingered, as though she didn't want to believe the warmth emitting from Ginny. Madam Pomfrey checked the the band. "It must be dysfunctional," she muttered.

"Hmm?"

"It has you recorded at normal temperature," said Madam Pomfrey. Frustration thickened her voice with a Southern twang, echoing Emma who came from thereabouts.

"Am I not?"

"You're still running a fever. The Xeridition should have treated that," Madam Pomfrey informed her.

Ginny nodded slowly although she didn't even know what Xeridition was. She couldn't even supply any logic to satisfy Madam Pomfrey. She rubbed at her dry, and presumably horribly bloodshot, eyes.

"Wizards have a higher temperature than Muggles, don't they?" Ginny suggested. She had a vague memory of a Healer looking at results and immediately dismissing any temperature inequalities off. It never seemed particularly important to Ginny. Why did Madam Pomfrey care so much?

"This is above the norm." Her voice was like a whip crack.

Ginny shrugged. Madam Pomfrey was almost definitely an experimental Healer. No one else would care about such a small margin of abnormality. What was she doing in a school? It just didn't add up.

"How do you feel? Drowsy? Unfocused?"

"Fine," Ginny maintained. The word fell out of her lips out of habit, not any real thought. It was just an auotmatic response to the oft repeated question which Healers were fond of. How many times had she said fine? At least five hundred. Fine. Fine. Fine. She was fine.

"_I'm fine."_

"_You don't look it." _

_The gentle words slapped Ginny in the face. She flinched. She was always fine. How else could she deal with everything? Ginny needed to be fine._

"_I feel it," she said softly. _

_Bill moved closer, still a good metre away, but edging near to her. He took halting steps, voice carefully lowered like she was a dangerous and cornered animal...which wasn't strictly false. But mostly, Ginny felt like a helpless child. Inept. Sandman's words and blurry images of events up until this moment came rushing back and...failure. What happened? It was all dim and distant, like maybe it was a story someone once told her and not her life._

"_Your hands," said Bill._

_Ginny looked down at them. Bill's hand twitched closer, she saw it out of the corner of her eye, but her gaze was fixated on her hands. The half-healed cuts fascinated her. Blood was caked dry on her hands, her knuckles scrapped clean. Ginny put her hands behind her back._

_Evidence of another failure. She couldn't get out. How long has she been stuck? Immobilised in her own mistakes and weakness. The XX encased her, until they opened it. Weak. Worthless. But what was her worth to Adams and Bill? The former had an unholy gleam in his eyes._

"_How...how long?" asked Ginny. She gestured vaguely with one hand, unable to gather the necessary words to describe the experience. She wasn't even sure what the question was. How long had she been dead? How long had she been comatose? How long had she been an inanimated corpse?_

_Adams checked his watch, a digital one with a dozen little buttons, and quickly informed her of the time. His eyes darted between her and the XX, and in a strangled tone added the year. "2012."_

_In Adam's brief pause, Ginny knew that the date alone was sufficient and that knowledge was overwhelming. Her world split down the sides and cracked into two. The truth was undeniable. An unwilling sob escaped her throat. Shit. The word echoed around her and seemed so utterly insignificant. Ginny slid down the wall to the floor, her shaky legs unable to support her anymore. She looked up at the two tall, hovering men._

_Pity shone in their eyes. Instead of asking her what date she thought it was or questioning her further, Bill repeated his earlier question. "Are you okay?"_

_Ginny's shoulders shook with restrained sobs. Soldiers didn't cry. Suck it up. Ginny closed her eyes for several moments, heard Adams suggest hesistantly that she was going into shock._

"_I'm fine."_

"Do you have my medical file? Like from before?" Ginny asked suddenly. "If it's some sort of condition they would have noticed it at St. Mungo's and at least temporarily treated it."

"No. I'm aware it exists, but with circumstances…" Madam Pomfrey trailed off. Her eyes were distant and then they focused on Ginny. Pity reflected in the whites. Sympathy. The Healer didn't even know what she was pitying, and that bothered Ginny more than the pity itself.

"I suppose I shall have to owl them, see if they can shed any sort of light on your condition," said Madam Pomfrey, reluctant, as if it hurt her pride to ask for help, wounded her dignity.

Ginny nodded. Nothing she could say would influence Madam Pomfrey, especially not some stupid excuse about wanting to leave old skeletons resting in their closets, not to have a circle of Healers standing around her again like she was a freak show. She already endured enough of that after the freak accident in Egypt.

"I want to look over some of your test results again. You should rest," advised Madam Pomfrey, only it was more or an order than advice.

Ginny nodded. This battle wasn't worth fighting. It was easier to comply, or at any rate, pretend to comply. She closed her eyes and shifted, with flares of pain, into a more comfortable sleeping position on her stomach. Ginny didn't expect to actually fall asleep, but she did and when she opened her eyes it was dusky.

Ginny blinked rapidly and her eyes adjusted to the dark. Vicious rain pounded off the window in a lilting lullaby, tempting Ginny to go back asleep. She yawned and sat up, peering around the ghostly room. Light flickered from underneath Madam Pomfrey's office door, evidently she was occupied inside.

Ginny took a deep breath and sung her legs over the edge of the bed, bracing for the pain. It never came, only the jarring twinge of her bladder complaining. Ginny hesitated to ensure she wouldn't be caught unaware by agony and in several stages stood up and crossed the Hospital Wing to the toilet, pausing only to shoot the bed pan a dirty look and gawk at Emma's sister.

Ginny stood rooted to the spot as she stared at the pale, motionless body. Jill's head was tilted towards Ginny, not of conscious desire (for that was stolen) but rather a twisted coincidence. An ominous symbol, as though she was watching, expecting...waiting. But for what? For company in her half-state? Ginny inched forward and touched Jill's face. Her skin was warm and soft, not the deathly cold Ginny expected. Ginny turned Jill's head so that it looked directly up at the ceiling, and then rushed into the bathroom, overcome by revulsion and fear. Dementor's Kiss. Ginny's chest was tight and there was an ache in her throat.

The girl would be moved home soon. Her parents were busy arranging a suitable environment and care, unable to bare her being shoved into a dusty, forgotten hospital ward. But no fate could be any worse than Jill's current one. One lie. One mistake. And her life was forfeit. Game over. No redos or undos or extra lives. Just gone. This wasn't like Ginny's brush with ancient Egyptian magic (although Ginny could erase the image of Jill's body. God, she must have looked so much more like a corpse in what was essentially a coffin), Jill had no hope.

When Ginny managed to leave the bathroom, she kept her eyes pinned on the ground. She hastily searched for her clothes. Madam Pomfrey left them conveniently folded in drawer of the locker beside her bed. Ginny quickly changed into her robes, moving silently to avoid alerting Madam Pomfrey. She couldn't stand staying here one single longer let alone enduring tests. Ginny didn't bother with the laces on her purple runners, and just shoved her feet in.

Then she vanished from the Hospital Wing, footsteps quick and her stride long. The distance lengthened but it wasn't enough. Ginny needed to be further away. She paused briefly, and decided on a location. She hurried up several flights of stairs to the top of the school. Well almost. She went to the second highest tower, because she didn't want to interrupt anyone in the Astronomy Tower. She just wanted distance and peace, and maybe somehow, perspective.

The circular stone room was rather cold and draughty. None of the windows had glass in them to allow easy exit and entrance for the hundreds of owls. They stared at her, every breed imaginable, all nestled on high perches, watching her with beady eyes, sensing that she shouldn't be here. Ginny tore her eyes away from the wise birds, and made her away across the straw covered floor doing her best to avoid the owl droppings and regunirated skeletons of mice and voles. She stared out the window, the ground was very far below, dark and quiet, but she could sense the Dementors lingering, drawing closer to the school at night trying to feed off the unsuspecting sleeping students. It was no surprise that more people than ever staggered down to the Great Hall for breakfast with dark bags under their eyes and complaining about bad sleep. And the existence of poor unfortunates like Jill.

Ginny perched on a windowsill. On impulse, swung her legs out the window and faced the grounds. Her legs swayed in the cool night air. Ginny fell into a blank mediation. She was almost content, secure in the fact that the shakes wouldn't strike and send her plunging to her death below. She couldn't survive that fall, and shouldn't be even tempting faith, but Ginny didn't pull her legs back in even after they grew numb.

She fancied that she could see the invisible horses out there, lurking at the edge of the Forbidden Forest but she could only see taunting shadows, which in daylight would flicker away, just as fleeting as her memories. But Ginny had a vivid imagination and pictured them. _The type of horse that Death should ride if the fictional stories were real,_ thought Ginny.

Ginny pushed her legs against the wall, and stilled, lingering on the brink of more than a ledge but of discovery too. She clenched her eyes shut and tilted her head back, repeated her thoughts and actions in her head, knowing that one contained the clue to their mystery. A frown pulled at her face. Ginny swung her legs back in, eyes preoccupied as she wandered out of the Owlery and over to Gryffindor Tower, even forgetting to take the shortcut.


	11. Concealing

Author's Note: This chapter is long overdue, but I got tangled up in rewriting and editing and writer's block. This chapter isn't 100% finished but closely enough hopefully. After brushing the dust off this file, I think it is readable. Honestly, I'm a bit lost in my own story at this stage so I hope it makes sense and flows with the previous chapters. Let me know what you think!

_**CONCEALING**_

"Sssh," Ginny hissed. She held up her pointer finger in the air and held it there, a beat passed, and she slammed the book shut with a glare. She took her finger down and looked up at the invading presence, an automatic smiling crossing her face. "Hi Ron."

"Hey Gin," he returned, but despite the casual greeting, his face was pinched. He flopped down in the seat opposite her. He offered her a lopsided grin and gamely asked the superfluous question. "Did She let you out already?"

Ginny made a face and shook her head, small pout forming on her lips. "Not quite…no."

"Reckoned as much," said Ron glumly. He waved his hands vaguely around the Common Room, noticeably Harry and Hermione were absent, that was the only time Ron ever spoke to her anymore. Although it was a relief, the long looks Hermione tossed at Ginny were worrying, and Ginny couldn't help but wonder how big of an issue Hermione made out of Ginny's spacing out in the library. Had seen a few medical books around the place. Worrying. Best not to be around Hermione, give the girl another reason to study Ginny. Ginny didn't think Hermione told Ron anything, wasn't that paranoid about Ron wandering over to talk to her.

"So why are you here?"

"Change of scenery?" Ginny said after creative thought. Could hardly admit to prying through Jake's things. Sneaking around wasn't a good look on her, painted her actions in an unfair light.

"Ginny!"

"Me and Jake are working on something, just hit a breakthrough, need to grab a book," Ginny said with a half shrug, lying sliding easily from her mouth. Two years ago Ron would have seen through it.

He didn't doubt her for a second, didn't even bother to question what the project was. Sounded like schoolwork which he blatantly wasn't interested in. Especially when there were other issues that needed to be addressed. "So, uh, why were you there?" Tried to sound casual while asking, failed miserably. His fascination with his hands telling her icy blue eyes didn't.

"Flu," Ginny lied again. It was the simple answer. Couldn't get into the complicated one. Didn't know that answer. "Madam Pomfrey was just being overcautious."

Relief flooded Ron's face, thankful that there was nothing sinister at work, determined to read the signs that he missed last year. "Oh. Okay. When will she notice that you're gone?"

Ginny made a face and said ironically. "Probably twenty minutes."

Ron shuddered. "In that case, I'm making my exit before you make me into an accomplice. That lady might just poison me next time I have to visit."

Ginny laughed at his dramatic antics. "Chicken."

"Hell yeah," Ron admitted, stretching his legs out in front of him and lounging back. Not shamed in the lest bout the admittance.

"Some Gryffindor you are," Ginny teased, small smile on her face taking out whatever sting might be in her words.

"Says the person working on a project at this hour. You should be excommunicated to Ravenclaw," Ron shot back without missing a beat.

Ginny stuck her tongue out at him, and Ron's only response was to reach out and ruffle her hair, an odd sort of expression on his face. "Mature, Gin, real mature."

"I think so," said Ginny, sticking up her nose haughtily. She shook her hair back into place, wouldn't have bothered, but faint traces of black lines were appearing on her neck. Looked like the Abeotician Aromatic wasn't as effective as it claimed, or maybe her tattoo was made of stronger stuff, but it was coming back again.

"Are you going home from Christmas?" Ron asked completely out of the blue. It wasn't even the season, not yet, although it wasn't so early that people weren't already discussing holiday plans.

"Dunno. Colin kinda wants me and Jake to visit for Christmas, show his dad that the Wizarding World isn't full of psychos and that we're perfectly normal people who do magic," Ginny explained. A beat passed. "We pointed out a major flaw in that plan."

Ron snorted. "Yeah, Colin actually _wants_ to come back."

"Jake can't exactly visit for a few days, either stay the entire holiday or go home. He's all the way from America, and you know at that time of the year trying to book a Floo station or portkey is a nightmare."

"Think you'll stay?"

"Two weeks of Percy," was all that Ginny said, and Ron nodded, understanding wholeheartedly and they shared a laugh. Usually Percy wasn't so bad, but with his upcoming NEWTs, he took his usual annoying self to a whole knew level of stress, and Ginny didn't feel like tiptoeing around the house because poor Percy was stressed.

"Yeah, I'm thinking of staying here," said Ron with a rueful grin.

"Oh, and my answer changes anything?"

"I might feel bad leaving you at Percy's mercy."

"Might?"

"Mmmh."

"Whatever," Ginny dismissed. She shoved Ron playfully. "Now scram. I think I hear Madam Pomfrey."

Ron scoffed but stood up nonetheless. "Like Sir Cadoegan would let her in."

A valid point. The lunatic was ruthless about entry without a password. Didn't let bribes or whines or threatens persuade him otherwise.

"A good chess master knows when to take risks," Ginny quipped, a slight pout on her lips, as she thought of all the times Ron completely annihilated her, smug little grin on his face from opposite the black and white chequered board.

"I'll take your advise when Percy's knight stops abusing you."

"He doesn't abuse my game," Ginny said. She crossed her arms and quickly uncrossed them, so not to appear defensive. "Not my fault he's a sexist ass."

"Nothing you should worry your pretty little head about," said Ron, grin still on his face, but a malicious glint entered his eyes as he taunted her.

Ginny shook a warning finger at him. She waved it some more for emphasis, not quite up to Mum's standard, but Ginny thought she was getting rather good at it. Now all she had to do was work on getting her brothers to listen to her." Not another word!"

"Or I'll meet my maker?" Ron prompted after a moment's pause, so uncreative that he needed an actual threat. No wonder he was scared of spiders. Couldn't be something random like giraffes, that would be beyond Ron.

"Was going to say Madam Pomfrey but if you want to admit that I can totally kick your ass go right on ahead," said Ginny, sickly sweet smile on her face.

Ron rolled his eyes but didn't dignify that with a response, or at least that was what he told himself. He hopped to his feet, knees cracking, and stretched his arms over his head. "I'll own up to believing in the tooth fairy before that," he said.

He regarded Ginny for a moment, and if Ginny did a good job at channelling Mum, then Ron was around Bill too often. From the very way he tilted his head and said his next words, it was pure Bill. "You should go the Hospital Wing after finishing up here."

Ginny waved him off, and turned to the next book in the pile beside her, conversation already dismissed from her mind, and almost like a spell had been cast, completely focused on her mission again. She knew that Jake kept the list in one of these books, and while she only glanced at it briefly, something told her that there was something insightful there whether Jake realised it or not.

Nothing.

It wasn't in the next book either.

Ginny sighed and looked at the stack, idly contemplated taking a book from the bottom, but knowing it would her luck for the book to be in the middle, or maybe Jake stored it in his locked trunk. Grrh! He wasn't even around to yell at for being awkward. Ginny had no idea where he was. It wasn't an odd occurrence, despite his seemingly bubbly exterior, Jake had a tendency to slip off, and do what, Ginny didn't know, but she suspected that it involved sulking and moodiness. She never followed him

Ginny sighed. It wouldn't be in the books. Not something Jake would leave lying around. He didn't show it to her, something personal there, probably undoubtedly in the damn trunk. Writing it in under Snape's nose was only a way to ward off suspicion, so that if anyone noticed what he was up to would think it was unimportant because he wouldn't risk Snape reading it to the class. Knew he wouldn't get caught.

Ginny buried her head in her hands, and against her will her eyes wandered to the door of the boys dormitory. It would be easy enough, but did that even out total invasion of privacy? Well, Jake wanted to find this out, by whatever means necessary he said coolly, eyes glittering (how could black glitter?) with an unidentifiable emotion. He'd think it was worth it, but that was only if, her invasion turned up something useful.

A good chess master knew when to take risks. Ginny bit her lip, guilt gnawing at her stomach as she checked her pocket, penknife warm weight against her leg. She didn't usually carry it around, but earlier she slipped it into her pocket before heading off to grab Jake's books, a subconscious desire to snoop? Bill gave it to her when it was her turn to go off to Hogwarts. It had attachments to undo any knot and unlock any lock. Claimed misuse and wear led it to be ineffective, and that he had to get a new one, but that she might find some use for it at Hogwarts. She didn't, not really, but now was the opportunity to see how good it was.

She crept up the darkened stairs, and whatever part of her that unthinkingly catalogued which steps creak, took control and instruct her how to hop them or where to step. Up the spiral staircase into the second year boys dormitory. The layout was exactly the same as the girls'. It could have been their room, only slight differences in posters and personal items. Couldn't even claim that one room was messier than the other.

A stack of pictures indicated which bed Colin called his own. Ginny flipped through them, stalling the inevitable, mind not even acknowledging the random assortment of pictures that made sense to Colin. A cursory glance knocked out two beds, everyone would have kept the beds they got in first year, and Jake would have ended up beside Colin, complained enough times about how the other boy snored. Only took seconds then to find out which one was Jake's. Ginny knelt down in front of his bed, and pulled out the trunk. The five locks sparkled up tauntingly at her.

Ginny inserted the blade of the magical knife into the crack of the first lock and moved it gently up and down, then withdrew it. There was a tiny click, and the trunk opened under her touch. It only contained a mass of spellbooks. Ginny shook her head, any of them might hide the elusive slip of paper. She'd check again if none of the other compartments revealed anything useful. Didn't want to invade his privacy totally. She wasn't that bad of a friend.

She closed the trunk, and repeated the same procedure on the second lock. The spellbooks vanished, this time an assortment of clothes, all neatly folded and Muggle, lay under her furtive gaze. The third compartment contained a slim rectangular case, which on inspection, Ginny vaguely identified as a laptop. She recognised a phone easily enough, but was at lost for the other gadgets. There was a small box, and with shaking hands Ginny opened it. Perched innocently inside lay a sleek gun. The breath caught in Ginny's throat, and her fingers operated without thought, muscle memory Ginny heard the term was called, and deftly striped down the gun into its pieces, and put it back together.

Gun violence was equally bad before the Pulse, she suspected. A thought occurred to her. She wasn't actually the same age as Jake, had those three years (even if they were spent trapped in a tomb and hadn't actually aged her) on him. She would have been nine around that time compared to Jake's six. While she didn't remember it, it must have had a impact on her.

The Pulse only encouraged gun violence. Jake wouldn't have remembered much of a world before it. God, he must have been only six. Had he ever been that young? She'd have been nine, and stayed nine for the next three years, entrapped by a nasty curse she stumbled on in Egypt. Should have believed in magic. She knew how to use a gun, and even though she didn't use one that day in the woods, she did countless of other times. The gun's very weight fell naturally in her hands. Familiar. Ginny shoved the gun back in its box, and replaced that very carefully.

The fourth compartment held potential. There were books, not textbooks, but hardback black journals. Ginny unfocused her eyes and flipped through the first, only catching glimpses of words and sentences. A journal, not a diary, because a diary was by nature personal, whereas this seemed like a record. Okay. He never admitted to that, but why not, no law that he couldn't keep a journal. There were several more books, and Ginny quickly flipped through them all, her name appearing several times, but she resisted the urge to peek. A page was stuck into one of the journals.

Unidentified Creature

Winged horse

Skeletal

Invisible (???)

Used for transport

Perhaps can fly

Tamed. Ask Hagrid

Dangerous creature. Dark (???)

Live in Forbidden Forest

Herd six (has to be more)

Some sort of standard for seeing them.

Colin can't

Ginny can, vaguely, doesn't meet up

Something I have but she barely does

Memory?

It went on, curt and abrupt, more like a report than tossing ideas out onto a page. Jake tried to guess what he and she might share that was relatively rare. American heritage. No, Snape knew about them on some level, and he was as British as they came. Similarity to, or feeling that way, Black. Murder. Only murders could see them?

Mythology. Similar to cliché about pointy hats and brooms? Death (???) Death's usually described as a skeletal being with a match horse and scythe. Coincidence, perhaps, but an infrequent trait. In relation to which? Having died, near death experience, or? None apply to me. Impossible to tell with Ginny.

That was it! The connection was there, the same one she grasped at fruitlessly, and one that Jake didn't follow up. Evasive as a snitch, and she held it in her hands. Ginny stared at the list for a moment longer, memorising Jake's words, knowing that if somehow it escaped again, that they'd trigger off similar if not the same thoughts.

Her hands were steady as she folded the page up (not parchment, blue-lined A5 page) and replaced it in the journal, same page, placed just so. Jake had a good memory, and she wasn't risking tipping him off. The ticking clock it the room echoed ominously, counting away the seconds she had before being caught red handed. Her hands moved quicker, fumbling slightly now, and there were footsteps on the stairs.

Shit. Ginny shoved the trunk back under the bed, grabbed her penknife and darted under Gerard's bed. It was a poor hiding place but she didn't even have enough time to slip into the bathroom, and as luck would have it Jake appeared in the doorway. From her position, curled under the bed, with a trunk digging into her spine, she couldn't really make out his expression, but he dragged his feet, like the stairs just wiped him out. Usually around this time, he'd be far more lively. He must have been chasing their invisible horses again.

Ginny shifted slightly, arching her back away from the trunk. The spot still tingle, and what Ginny really wanted was to rub it, but such a movement wouldn't pass unnoticed no matter how tired Jake seemed. Worn. The temptation to read his journals was greater than ever. Get an insight into the person that no one ever saw.

A shiver pulsed out from the spot in her back. Ginny clenched her eyes shut. Not now, not again. Spasms rattled her body, furious and silently, completely unnoticed. Ginny's tongue felt heavy in her mouth. For some reason she felt incredibly aware of it, fear of swallowing it or something. Ginny clamped her teeth down on her tongue, ensuring that it didn't disappear down her throat, and giving her something else to focus on. The coppery taste of blood slipped down her throat.

There was a squeak, and Jake's feet were no longer visible on the floor. He must have collapsed on the bed. His breathing was even, but Ginny didn't think that he was asleep, or even close to that state. He just lay there, content just to rest until someone came back. The seconds passed like minutes until Ginny had no idea how long passed. Time held no meaning between Jake's deep breaths and her shuddering body. Another squeak and feet appeared, and they moved silently across the obnoxiously red-carpeted floor, into the bathroom.

Ginny rolled out from under the bed, and supporting her weight on the post, pulled herself to her feet. Ginny's stomach twisted and twirled, threatening to unload food that wasn't actually there. Ginny didn't have time to take a deep breath and settle herself. She darted towards the door, and escaped through it. She closed the door behind her with a quiet click. She sat down. Ginny knew she shouldn't take a break so close, but the stairs seemed to twist endlessly down to the next flight.

She pulled her knees up to her chest and curled up into a ball, arms wrapped around herself and let the shakes play out. She hardly had a choice in the matter, and on the other side of a thick door, Jake never noticed.

She took in a shuddery breath and rose unsteadily to her feet. As much as she'd like to stay forever, the concept of not moving so alluring, she knew that she had to. At least she was going down the stairs, that was the lesser of the two evils. Didn't know if she'd be able to face going up a staircase.

She kept a steady hand on the banister and with painful slowness staggered down the stairs, managing to nod and look reasonable to the few boys heading in the opposite way. The sidelong looks only having to do with why she was heading down from the boys dormitories. She only vaguely recognised the boys, and hoped that they weren't her brothers' friends, because if they found out, well, she'd have a fun time trying to come up with an explanation.


End file.
